About Yvonne [Paperback]

Masini Donna (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0393335461 | ISBN-13: 978-0393335460 | Publication Date: January 1, 1980

"I have been stalking my husband's lover," claims Terry Spera, the obsessive, humorously edgy narrator of this intelligent and highly erotic tour de force, an auspicious debut novel The Washington Post hailed as "wonderfully impressive." Literally following in the footsteps of the young woman with whom she is certain her husband is having an affair, Terry eventually enters Yvonne's apartment, her closet, her medicine cabinet--and her life. As she strives to maintain a semblance of normalcy with her husband, Mark, a SoHo art dealer, Terry, and the reader, veer from certainty to uncertainty. Is Mark really having an affair? With breathless energy, a deeply engaging voice, and a searing sensuality, Donna Masini illuminates the dim and fragmented terrain of a woman's inner life with the wit and passion of a dazzling literary talent. About Yvonne is a compelling, witty, beautifully written story of New York at the end of this century and of a woman at the end of her rope.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

What happens when a stalker is female and the object of her obsession is her husband's suspected lover? What happens when the setting is New York City, captured through the stare of suspicion and paranoia? Donna Masini answers these and other questions in About Yvonne.

Terry Spera suspects her husband of having an affair, so--like any self-respecting woman scorned--she takes to stalking. Sharpening the oft-told tale of a woman's relationship to--well, to her relationship--is a kind of alluring creepiness; About Yvonne explores obsession-compulsion and its build toward madness through the accretion of minute details. Terry records her observations in this first-person narrative through uncomplicated, breathless sentences; it is, in fact, a novel of declarative sentences that advance in surprisingly flat tones, as if the very force of their accretion will destroy her rather than the weight, shape, or taste of the details.

Poet Donna Masini was awarded The Barnard New Women Poets Prize for her first collection of poems, That Kind of Danger. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The prizewinning young poet Masini has taken to prose with elan and written a keyed-up and sexy novel about obsession, betrayal, and love. Terry, an Italian Catholic who grew up in Brooklyn as the oddball single sibling in a family of twins, lives in Manhattan with her art gallery owner husband, Mark, and teaches college literature. She adores Mark, and they have a hot and intricate love life, but all is jeopardized when Terry finds out that Mark is having an affair with a woman named Yvonne. Yvonne also teaches literature, resembles Terry in size and shape, though she is pale and Waspy, and works out at the same club. Something snaps inside Terry. She secures a set of keys to Yvonne's apartment and starts spending her afternoons there, trying on Yvonne's clothes, snooping through her things, imagining her with Mark, and turning her pain and rage into weirdly ritualized aberrant behavior. Her activities become more and more risky and risque, an escalation Masini chronicles with convincing precision in scenes notable for their graceful composition and psychological heat. Donna Seaman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. (January 1, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393335461
• ISBN-13: 978-0393335460
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,966,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books written in the last few decades., January 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: About Yvonne (Paperback)

Donna Masini's "About Yvonne" is one of the best books that I have read. I actually became absorbed in Terry's world never quite knowing what she would do next yet feeling that we shared the exact same emotions. Donna Masini is one of the most gifted American writers that I have come across in the past few years. Though the characters' language can be coarse, Masini's writing never loses its flowing, beautiful quality. Terry Spera is a unique literary creation in that she is a stalker who knows that she hunts her husband's possible lover, knows its wrong and yet in clandestine rebellion she is proud of her actions. I cannot wait until her next novel or next book of poetry is published, and I am sure that I will devour it the same way that I have "About Yvonne".

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I had to force myself to finish it., March 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: About Yvonne (Paperback)

It is pieces like About Yvonne that mystify me as to exactly how some authors manage to get published. Trudging though this book was almost a chore (luckily, it was short and didn't require much deep speculation). The main character is so desperately shallow and pathetic it is impossible to feel any kind of sympathy or empathy for her. The book is so replete with annoying redundancies and cliches and clumsily written "erotica," it probably would have been better if the author spared us and contained it to a short story. Masini writes about New York like a person who has never been to New York, writes about art galleries like a person who has never been to an art gallery, and writes about sex like a person who's never...well, you get the idea.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Psychological insight -- real and uncensored, February 25, 2004

By 

Susan K. Perry "Susan K. Perry" (Los Angeles, author of LOVING IN FLOW (BunnyApe.com)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: About Yvonne (Paperback)

Just finished it. Loved it! Masini has explored with uncommon honesty what it feels like to be lost, to be obsessed, to be haunted by the fact that one's beloved is sleeping with another. Her language never hits a false note. I didn't see this as a "New York book" but as a tale about what goes on inside the mind of someone not capable of thinking clearly at the moment. I found the narrator, the central character, to be utterly believable and real. Just the right amount of suspense, and just the right amount of redemption (not much, but enough).