Faithful Rebecca [Paperback]

Janice Eidus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1987

Faithful Rebecca will not easily be forgotten. In this wildly erotic, magical and comic novel of fast-paced suspense, Rebecca, a modern day Scarlett O'Hara from New York City, embarks on an impassioned search for hr infant daughter, Lily, and Lily's kidnapper. Her quest leads to a mountaintop community of women emulating mythical Amazon warriors where Rebecca is reunited with both Lily, being raised as an Amazon, and Sagana, formerly Rebecca's devoted best friend and now the passionate, fierce, and beautiful Amazon queen. She also meets the equally memorable Howard Geller, a wisecracking, romantic, runaway teenager living on the fringe of the community. After a mysterious mountain, these characters' stories merge in an exciting climax on Manhattan's lower east side. This many-leveled contemporary fable incorporates such motifs as personal ads and female bodybuilding, while asking difficult questions about women's roles as friends, lovers, mothers, and daughters.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This first novel begins with Rebecca's literal and symbolic awakening atop a mountain where her former best friend Sagana has fled with Rebecca's baby daughter, Lily, and formed an Amazon community with other dissatisfied New York City women. Although Rebecca considers herself a faithful friend and mother, we learn that she came to the mountain mainly to find Evan, Lily's father. Instead, she meets Howard Geller, a silly teenager who helps her search for Sagana and Lily. She also meets Rhea, a body-building amazon who abuses her trust. Eventually she finds her former friend and daughter and, finally, begins to find herself. Returning to New York, Rebecca discards her jewelry, cosmetics, expensive clothing and photographs of herself in sensual poses; she no longer wants to be a doll for men to play with, insisting Lily be her only "lover." In the end, she must strip herself of everything material and ultimately suffer a tragic loss before she can truly begin to rebuild her life.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"...a wonderful novel, filled with humor, mysticism and wit. Faithful Rebecca is a delight." -- Meg Wolitzer

"Janice Eidus' uncanny fiction rings with broad humor, intelligence, and heart." -- David Leavitt

Product Details

• Paperback: 172 pages
• Publisher: Fiction Collective 2; 1 edition (March 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0932511074
• ISBN-13: 978-0932511072
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,911,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Feminazis, January 19, 2006

By 

D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Faithful Rebecca (Paperback)

Rebecca's lover Sagana steals Rebecca's child and takes off for a commune of Amazons in upstate New York. Rebecca follows her to recover the child and gets involved with a group that Rush Limbaugh would have been justified in calling Feminazis. Later, for no apparent reason, the child dies, and Rebecca decides that being a mother wasn't a good idea anyway. I think we are meant to see a woman starting off as wanton and seductive and abandoning stereotypical ornamental and maternal female roles as she becomes stronger and more mature.

It is badly constructed and never really coheres as a novel. The upstate New York scenes are set in a kind of sword-and-sorcery fantasyland (maybe that is the way Manhattanites think of upstate) and even the Manhattan scenes lack any nitty-gritty realism and often merge into daydreams and confusing flashbacks

This is Eidus juvenilia (published in 1987) probably of interest to Eidus fans who are interested in her development as a writer. Some may be turned on by the kinky erotic scenes which are, shall I say, unusual.