Anyone who has ever lived in or around Brockport will find much that is familiar in Carol Weiss Rosenberg’s new novel, Can’t Wait, because the story, set in the fictional village of “Oakport,” was inspired by the canalside village her family once called home.
Can’t Wait is a story of friendship, love, heartache, and mystery. The ad in the local paper read, “If nothing else has worked, what have you got to lose? Only those unwanted pounds. Hypnosis is safe and painless, and it gets results. Gain poise and confidence. You can change your life!” Two of the women who answered the ad were neighbors who hardly knew each other before the slim, elegant French-Canadian hypnotist with a beguiling foreign accent came to Rochester, New York, but they bonded over a shared desperation to lose the weight that had plagued them forever. For Andrea, hypnosis was a last-ditch effort to save her marriage. For Sally, it seemed like a way to lead a healthier life and get some respect at last. Mme. LaMince promised to make things better, and she did – at first.
But unexpected consequences threatened to destroy a friendship, a marriage, and even a life.
Rosenberg says this novel is bound to pique the interest of local readers, not only because it’s a love letter to the natural beauty and small-town charms of upstate New York, but also because, although the story of friendship, love, and suspense is set in the past (1979-1980), one of its underlying themes – many women’s fraught relationship with their body image – is currently front and center in today’s media.
Can’t Wait can be ordered from Lift Bridge Book Shop, which even makes a cameo appearance in the novel.
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