SOURCE: “Far from Home,” in Commonweal, March 27, 1998, p. 24.

In the following review, Schwartz offers a mixed assessment of A Lover's Almanac, arguing that the novel's minor characters are more compelling than the protagonist.

In A Lover's Almanac, Maureen Howard moves far afield from the literary precincts of spirited Irish-Catholic women where she has made her mark. In this more youthful, futuristic venue, Howard's protagonists are a star-tossed couple, Louise (Lou, Lou-Lou) Moffett, an aspiring artist on the cusp of Downtown success, and her boyfriend Arthur (Artie) Freeman, a computer-graphics adept for a cyberspace ad agency. The opening scene is a fifties-style New Year's costume party, replete with tuna and taffeta, to greet the year 2000. Artie, who has sampled too many martinis, assaults two of the guests, including Louise's art dealer, and is unceremoniously hauled out of the apartment and hurled from Lou's life. The next two-thirds of the...