One's Company: Book summary and reviews of One's Company by Ashley Hutson

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Joy

One's Company
I too grew up watching Three's Company and was very interested in the concept of the book. I am familiar with issues of depression, drugs & mood swings with family history of such things in older relatives. The book takes the reader to the precipice of those possibilities, yet keeps pulling the reader back to a possible reality. The reader will experience joy, sadness, laughter, friendship, love & hope in this carefully spun mind exploratory novel of life and death. The reader is left with the question of who we truly are and what we mean to ourselves and others in this vast universe of human beings.

Ann B. (Kernville, CA)

Beyond the comfort of fantasy lies the unknowable fourth wall
Bonnie Lincoln has survived horrific trauma. Barely survived. When she wins the mother of all lotteries, Bonnie decides that she can indeed escape her pain, her trauma, and her past. All she needs is to trade her story for that of her favorite TV show characters. "My reality cracked open, and the television spooned another one on top." Bonnie buys a remote property, builds an identical re-creation of Three's Company. All alone, she not only binge-watches the eight seasons of episodes that ran from 1977 to 1984. She binge-lives the show, inhabiting each of the characters, year by year. But eventually she will have to face the unknowable fourth wall. I absolutely binge-read this novel, laughing with Bonnie one minute, aching for her the next minute -- aching for her through the bittersweet ending.

Judith S. (Marietta, GA)

one's company
Reading "one's company" is not unlike (I imagine) slowly, but steadily, descending into madness. The reader is given a tour through the mind of someone losing their grip on a reality that may not even be real. Being transported between the before and after (a specific event), we are privileged to listen to the inner thoughts of someone on the edge. If this is not disturbing enough, many of those thoughts, ideas and desires are ones that we have had ourselves.
The author invites us into a world we both recognize and are frightened or repulsed by. Throughout the whole, there is the sense that this story, this person is absurd. But is she?

Julie Z. (Oak Park, IL)

One's Company
Bonnie Lincoln has not had an easy life-both her mother and father died at an early age, leaving her without resources. She is "taken in" by her friend Krystal's family, but soon the mother, father, and brother are murdered in the grocery store which they own. Luckily, Bonnie wins a huge amount of money in the lottery, allowing her to escape her reality by building a life within the set of popular 70's sitcom "Three's Company". Bonnie creates a life in which she rotates living as each of the television show's characters; cutting herself off from all communication with the outside world.
In Bonnie, Ashley Hutson has created a surreal heroine. What is real and what is imagined? How have the traumas that Bonnie has suffered contributed to this bizarre life she has created? I was puzzled at many of her choices, but was riveted to the book until completion. Hutson has a bright future in literature- I found this to be a well-written, gripping novel.

Dan W. (Fort Myers, FL)

An Amazing Reality
This book captures a multitude of experiences resulting in the main character, Bonnie Lincoln, removing herself from society after winning an enormous lottery. What starts off in a "once in a lifetime dream" of winning a lottery to the demons that come to possess Bonnie's life of residing in a self-imposed world of loneliness. At times this novel can be troubling to read due to Bonnie's decision to remove herself from society to live in a fantasy world of a 1970s TV show, "Three's Company". The depths that the author goes to revealing the innermost thoughts of the main character is brilliant! I believe this is a book that would be engaging to discuss at a book club.

Sylvia T. (Rancho Mirage, CA)

High praise for One's Company and for Ashley Hutson
I absolutely LOVED this book. It was a bizarre storyline about a woman who wins the lottery and uses the money to recreate the "Three's Company" set to live in. However, unlike Three’s Company characters, Bonnie throughout the book experiences severe responses to the trauma she has endured - constant exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, and agitation just to name a few. I doubt that you’ll be able to put this book aside until you finish it. I highly recommend picking up a copy of Ashley Hutson’s ONE’S COMPANY to see for yourself!

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