Overview
Phyllis Geronomous is witty, blunt, razor sharp - and the despair of her family. She's a senior citizen and an original, still trying to run the lives of her three grown children. As far as they're concerned, Phyllis's best attribute is that she's a Florida resident, while they live in New York. But then Phyllis decides that retirement and spending the holidays alone in Miami are not for her, and she's going to move back to the Big Apple. Sigourney, Sharon, and Bruce are horrified. They just can't let crazy Phyllis ruin their lives all over again. Murder is out - purely for practical reasons. And Christmas is unbearable enough without a visit from Mom - and what if she stays as she's threatening to do? Sig is a single, stylish, control-freak stockbroker who is terrified of her downsized professional and personal life; Sharon is a neurotic suburban housewife with two young children and an unemployed husband; and Bruce - the baby of the family - is a gay greeting-card entrepreneur whose business is folding faster than you can say "Queer Santa." Phyllis's arrival in New York will be the unraveling of them all. Only Sig has the ideal solution: They'll join forces and marry Mom off. Then she'll be someone else's problem. They call the plan "Operation Geezer Quest," but where are they going to find an old, deaf, dumb, blind, and, above all, rich groom?Editorials
New York Daily News
Witty... A quick read, full of funny New York moments and ready-for-the-big-screen charm... Perfect comic relief.Naples Daily News
A raucous comedy... Goldsmith keeps readers laughing.... [She] has scored another hot book and showed us yet another side of her versatile personality.Herald Sun
...she(Goldsmith) does great justice to the humor and irony of her story.New York Daily News
Witty... A quick read, full of funny New York moments and ready-for-the-big-screen charm... Perfect comic relief.Naples Daily News Naples
A raucous comedy... Goldsmith keeps readers laughing.... [She] has scored another hot book and showed us yet another side of her versatile personality.Kirkus Reviews
Goldsmith follows The Bestseller (p. 768) with a light, contrived romance about a Jewish mother and her three unsettled children.Mom is Phyllis Geronomous (née Phyllis Steen, so Geronomous seems a big improvement), and she lives in South Florida. While at 69, she's no longer young, she finds little appealing about the lifestyle of her many elderly neighbors, who restlessly patrol the local boardwalk and look forward only to early-bird dinners at the Rascal House. Dedicated to finding something a little less terminal, Phyllis bids farewell to her dead husband Ira at the cemetery—he doesn't answer, but he never said a lot when he was alive either—and returns to New York City to get into the hair of her unhappy children: Sigourney (née Susan), a 40ish stockbroker whose business and love life are falling apart; gay Bruce, whose "Queer Santa" greeting-card line is failing and whose lover won't commit to marriage; and fat, whiny Sharon, whose husband Barney is a deadbeat. Guilty because she never had time to go to PTA meetings, Phyllis now wants to fix their lives. At the same time, they want her out of their hair and back with the palm trees. So, the three launch Operation Geezer Quest to find Phyllis a rich husband, complete with a Bergdorf Goodman makeover and a suite at the Pierre. Along the way, with enough Yiddish for a whole season of The Nanny, Phyllis doles out tough love and wise words. Finally, everyone's life is improved, and Mom begins her eighth decade with good sex, a large sapphire ring, and an offshore bank account in the Caymans.
Some laughs and refreshing senior-citizen romance, but more like the outline for a TV sitcom than a novel.