Second thoughts: Second Chances (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781636845746)

Having met at Ithaca University as graduate students, the millennial year of

2000 is soon approaching, Sydney Steinberg and Corinna Kipnis consider each other

their exclusive significant other. While after graduation, Corinna takes up a position

as reference librarian in her hometown library of Thompsonville, Syd hastens to finish

his graduate degree in engineering. But after some irrepressible soul-searching, he

decides on a radical change of course--he will, instead, attempt that more challenging

career in the New York financial world he has always aspired to, which, in his estimate,

will not only demand his highest level of intellectual mastery but, simultaneously, will

also position him at the very cutting edge of significant decision making. This choice

and the lifestyle it engenders set Corinna and Syd on deeply discordant life tracks and

toward life goals that prove incompatible.

In the meantime, Viktor, Corinna's father and now professor emeritus, has

been summoned to California for a hospital visit with his cousin and boyhood hero,

Mitchell Kipnis. Despite Mitchell's palatial Malibu home, Viktor perceives Mitchell's

loneliness as a widower and retiree and convinces him that a prolonged vacation in

his old hometown--Thompsonville--is just what the doctor would have ordered.

Additionally, Viktor reminds Mitchell that his son Paul, has just taken a position at

Ely College in Thompsonville and would be an added companion. Mitchell consents

to this transition and eventually becomes a thoroughly vibrant part of the whole

Thompsonville scene. Inevitably, Corinna and Syd separate; and through this painful

process, Corinna actually begins to fall in love with another person--having herself

attained a depth and confidence she had never before realized. In this generational

and a career mix of interesting, well-realized characters, there are more than enough

opportunities for dynamic clashes of values and priorities--small-town community or

big-city glitz? Wealth and power or a dedication to personal development? Parents

and their children retaining familial ties between generations or opting to go it alone?

Plenty of opportunity for second thoughts. And hopefully discovering second chances

along the way, the reader might be drawn into some thoughtful reevaluation of his own

basic assumptions. And that is, of course, the best of all outcomes.