Claire Lombardo must know something about being a mom. Yes, plenty of people write about how challenging it is to be a mom and how difficult it is to find help from one’s own mom. Generational trauma, stagnant marriages, a whole bunch of “what could haves” --- if a character hadn’t gotten married, had a baby, quit her career to care for said baby, and searched in vain for a mentor to help them with her pedestrian life. But Lombardo also knows what it’s like to be the “weird” mom --- the one who listens to music no one else knows and brings up the wrong things at preschool pick-up.

This brings us to Julia Ames, the post-punk mom with the sudden mentor found during a breakdown in a botanical garden. This unique and thoughtful character has past traumas reignite in SAME AS IT EVER WAS, Lombardo’s second novel, following THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD.

"...a delightful and thoughtful novel... Lombardo’s work is a solid buoy for those rafting over the tremulous waters of contemporary life."

As Julia faces her stale marriage, the status-driven social scene that she no longer enjoys, the shocking information from her young adult son, and the formidable intensity from her teen daughter who is experiencing changes in her own life, she relives her early motherhood era. That is when she meets Helen, a retired older lady who takes pity on her and becomes her comrade-in-arms, even though Helen’s four boys are all grown and out of the house and her marriage seems solid and full of vigor. Despite being a good friend, Helen becomes the avatar of some unfortunate change in Julia’s life, and they part ways.

However, on some weird day at a posh supermarket, Helen returns to Julia, bringing up all the strange goings-on from the past. How is Julia going to survive digging through the remains of her foregone dark days? Is Helen’s reappearance a message, a warning or a bad omen?

I think Lombardo has access to the diaries that I discarded years ago. At that time, I had a baby and was so excited. But I also was petrified that my life was going to be upended in ways that would erode everything I had learned about myself in the preceding 20 years. SAME AS IT EVER WAS is the story of a woman given a second chance who is pulled back into familial patterns and long-oppressed fears and resentments as her children create new dynamics in their own lives, and she feels that everything is turning against her. The overwhelming anxiety of what she has done right, what she has done wrong, and whether or not she is about to make a big karmic payment to the universe as her world tilts on its axis drive this very personal and deep portrayal of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

With its title taken from a Talking Heads song and an overarching feeling of the pain of change, SAME AS IT EVER WAS fits right in with our post-pandemic anxieties as our worlds collide with realities far beyond our comprehension and transitions we didn’t think we had signed up for. Lombardo’s deep dives into female relationships, motherly dependence and human independence all conflict in the most entertaining way. The story is driven by Julia’s good heart and her desire to be a good person in a dark world. It shows off Lombardo’s patently perfect writing style, her crafty dialogue, and her ability to insert us directly into what may be one woman’s complete manifestation of middle age. Her journey is one that is unique to her and yet offers up some of the sagest and most substantial looks into middle-aged feminism that I’ve ever read.

SAME AS IT EVER WAS is a delightful and thoughtful novel, appropriate for a quiet beach day but more the kind of reading that will have you starting your own journal as you find you can’t stop thinking about Julia and her travails and triumphs. Lombardo’s work is a solid buoy for those rafting over the tremulous waters of contemporary life.