House of Women: A Novel [Paperback]

Lynn Freed (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 6, 2003

From one of our most admired literary novelists comes a breakout book that weaves a stunning tale of passion, love, and long-buried secrets. At the center is Thea, raised under lock and key by her overprotective mother-until one day her curiosity about the world drives her to escape. When Thea enters into an arranged marriage with a stranger, her new life, in conflicted lust with her husband, turns into a different sort of prison. It is only after Thea gives birth to her own children that she comes to understand the mother she once sought to escape and that she can begin to fulfill her own unexpected destiny.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Secrets twine around secrets in this haunting, intimate novel about the power of desire and the stifling force of isolation. Born to a wealthy womanizer and a vain opera singer, Theadora grows up on an estate with her mother, Nalia, at the southern tip of Africa. She is both spoiled and sheltered, never allowed to leave home unescorted. When Nalia goes inland for weekend sessions with her therapist, Katzenbogen, the maid, Maude, is left in charge. No man, not even Thea's father, is allowed up to the house. Later, it is clear why the gate is always padlocked; unbeknownst to her, 17-year-old Thea has been promised to her father's middle-aged cousin, a Syrian. He takes advantage of Thea's eagerness to see the world beyond her front yard, not to mention her yearning for male attention, and lures her from her haven. They quickly marry aboard a ship "And so it is done. I am to be married to a man whose name I do not know" and speed off to his nameless island home. Only there does Thea realize that this adventure might have serious consequences and question why the Syrian wanted her. The truth hardens her resolve to escape and see her mother again. Like a Jean Rhys antiheroine, Theadora strikes out fiercely against the world, but is helpless in the face of male desire. And like Rhys, Freed (The Mirror) imagines a world in which major events are only ambiguously described, but domestic details are sensuously immediate. This otherworldly tale philosophizes smartly on what it is to crave love and to sacrifice clarity for passion. 3-city author tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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

From Library Journal

The author of four previous novels, South African-born Freed (The Mirror) here presents a surreal tale. Her heroine innocent, convent-educated Thea describes her abduction and marriage to her natural father's wealthy cousin. Thea does not know her husband's name or the name of the island where he makes her a prisoner in his home. As she recounts her struggles to come to terms with her new life, she writes never-answered letters to her mother, a Holocaust survivor, and muses on her previous life. Until she was 17, she lived an isolated life somewhere near "the bottom of Africa" with her mother and Maude, a native live-in servant. After the birth of twin girls, she convinces her husband to allow her to return to visit her mother, only to learn that her mother is dying. Nearly 20, Thea reads her mother's notebook and finally learns her secrets. Freed's matter-of-fact writing style draws the reader into Thea's strange and isolated world. While the novel may find an audience in large public libraries, the book's focus on psychological and gender issues recommends it to academic libraries. Cheryl L. Conway, Univ. of Arkansas Lib., Fayetteville

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books (February 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316095567
• ISBN-13: 978-0316095563
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 7.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,337,262 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LYNN FREED was awarded the inaugural Katherine Anne Porter Award for fiction by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is the author of six novels, a short story collection, and a collection of essays.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful and mysterious book, February 18, 2002

By 

Jeffrey R Galipeaux - See all my reviews

This review is from: House of Women: A Novel

Lynn Freed writes beautifully, and "House of Women" is a mysterious, otherworldly book. Her ability to whittle down to only the most emotionally essential description is wonderfully dreamlike and virtuoso; this is not a long novel, but it's extraordinarily rich. It reminded me both of Jean Rhys' work and of the second half of "The Sheltering Sky" -- both good reference points in my book. The first fifty pages or so are very swift and mysterious (and might loose a few sticklers for realism who could have trouble surrendering to Freed's premise), but they reflect the staccato structure of the conclusion, and they also have a tug of dark fantasy that was pulled off deftly. And the tone of that "premise-portion" of the novel is thoroughly in keeping with the rest of the book -- evocative, sad, and jaggedly beautiful. There, due praise with nothing spoiled.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The many faces of obsession..., March 28, 2003

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: House of Women: A Novel (Paperback)

This remarkably complex novel is as multi-layered as humanity itself, a caution against the folly of premature assumptions. Truth, after all, lies in personal perceptions.

Nalia and her daughter, Theodora, live in a house surrounded by a fence with a padlocked gate, immune to the passions of the outside world. A Holocaust survivor, Nalia wishes to keep her daughter close as a shadow, perhaps even growing old together, so that she need never be alone. Nalia understands men and their selfish ways and considers them untrustworthy buffoons, including Thea's philandering father, as he briefly drifts in and out of their lives.

The years pass, and Thea's childish innocence is replaced by the romantic musings of adolescence; she begins to chafe at her mother's claustrophobic constraints. The years of living so intimately have corrupted their mother/daughter relationship's progression through it's natural stages into the roles of captor and prisoner. In one shocking afternoon, the padlock on the gate is broken open and Thea elopes with a mysterious older man, her father's old friend, leaving a desolate Nalia howling with despair.

Nalia is alone, after all, without her beloved companion and Thea finds herself isolated on an island with a possessive husband that refuses to release her. Even when she becomes pregnant and gives birth to twins, he will not allow her to leave and take the children to meet their grandmother, fearful that she won't return. The two women struggle, each in their own way, to survive their forced separation, both filled with regret. They are, after all, the victims of time, which can never be contained, no matter how carefully its reality is avoided.

Finally, seduced by memory, Nalia and Thea are tormented by their intense longing to see each other, to renew their closeness, and unable to find release from the power of their fierce emotions. Their bond of blood, as old as time, cannot be severed. Lives complicated by ancient lies and hidden truths, each must find the way back, to forgive the unforgivable. With consummate skill, Freed's vibrant characters fill the pages of House of Women, flaunting their obsessions, passions, and finally, their deep love for one another. Luan Gaines/2003.

10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Master of Voice, March 13, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: House of Women: A Novel

I have been waiting for this novel ever since reading The Mirror. Freed hands down a lesson once more. A lesson in tone, a lesson in character, a lesson in pacing, and, as in The Mirror, a triumphant lesson in Voice!

This is not simplistic fiction. It fits no category except in the category of excellence. Slow, evocative, like layers being peeled away or a picture and a world coming into focus as the reader -- me! -- marveled at this modern master. If you want car chases go elsewhere. Seemingly effortless depth? You've found it!