Mourning Glory [Paperback]

Warren Adler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2002

Thirty-eight year old divorcee Grace Sorentino is in a precarious position, upwardly mobile in age, downwardly mobile in income. A cosmetician on Palm Beach's fashionable Worth Avenue, she barely makes enough to keep her 16-year old daughter Jackie in their tiny apartment. Still they're scraping by . . . until Grace loses her job. Hanging on by a thread, Grace reluctantly pursues a cynical and bizarre scheme to snare a rich widower. But when she finally comes within a hair's breadth of her goal, she finds herself enmeshed in a self-spun web of deception and danger that threatens to rob her of everything she holds dear.

Brilliant and bittersweet, daring, erotic and darkly humorous, Mourning Glory pulls readers into one woman's tangled web. Here is another blockbusting and timely novel about the cost of getting what you want -- when what you really want is priceless.

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lubricious (and sometimes ludicrous), this novel gives hope to despairing single females on the verge of 40. There's always a chance to acquire a rich husband if you screen the obits, pick out a grieving widower with a posh address and take after him, saving the sex card, of course, for last. Prolific novelist and screenwriter Adler (The War of the Roses) is a skilled fictioneer; his plot turns are inventive, and his true-to-life dialogue helps identify each character all of whom engage readers' emotions in one way or another. Grace Sorrentino, divorced mother of feisty teenaged daughter Jackie, sells cosmetics at Saks in Palm Beach until she's fired for talking back to a rude, rich customer. Faced with continued downward mobility, she takes her boss's advice, does the research and finally fibs her way into Sam Goodwin's mansion after the funeral of his "perfect" wife, Anne, professing to be a volunteer who's been designated to distribute Anne's extensive wardrobe among appropriate charities. One lie leads to another as Grace invents an upscale past (parentage, college, ex-husband, daughter) to match her envisioned upscale future. Grace can foresee neither the threat posed by Sam's greedy adult children nor that represented by her own daughter, full of curiosity about her mother's secret activities. The sex and money showcased here constitute soft porn: designer label lingo will satisfy upwardly mobile wannabes, and the occasional stirrings of conscience among the principal characters make everybody feel good. This is romance doctored with a good dose of suspense; the titillating premise should attract browsers, especially when the mass market edition appears. National advertising; 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 Booklist

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Out of a job, out of money, and out of patience with her out-of-control teenage daughter, Grace takes some unusual advice from an unlikely source and does something out of character to stop her life from falling completely apart. Deciding that a loveless marriage to a wealthy man is the solution, the thirtysomething divorcee makes a calculated attempt to snare a rich widower. In tony Palm Beach, such creatures are not uncommon, and finding a likely suspect is as easy as perusing the obituaries, then cruising the funeral parlors. Quick as you can say "my deepest condolences," Grace meets Sam and insinuates herself into his life, his bed, and ultimately his heart. Although everything goes beyond her wildest expectations, nothing goes according to plan as truth and honesty are sacrificed to greed and deception. Viewing the dating game from an offbeat perspective, Adler paints a credible portrait of a grieving widower and a ruthless caricature of a predatory woman. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 446 pages
• Publisher: Stonehouse Press (August 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0758200447
• ISBN-13: 978-0758200440
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,984,519 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Warren Adler is a world-renowned novelist, short story writer and playwright. His 32 novels and story collections have been translated into more than 25 languages and two of his novels, The War of the Roses and Random Hearts, have been made into enormously popular movies, shown continually throughout the world.

Three short stories from his acclaimed collection, The Sunset Gang, have been adapted as a trilogy and shown repeatedly on the Public Television network.

Mr. Adler's blogs appear regularly in the Huffington Post and other sites throughout the world and his short stories appear in numerous anthologies.

Mr. Adler is a pioneer in electronic publishing. He was one of the first authors to acquire his complete backlist and to convert his entire library to digital publishing formats.

A product of the New York public school system, Mr. Adler graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and New York University, where he majored in English literature. In 2009, he was honored by being chosen "Alumni of the Year" at NYU's School of Arts and Science. He has taught novel writing at honors seminars at NYU.

After graduating from New York University with a degree in English literature, Mr. Adler worked for the New York Daily News before becoming Editor of the Queens Post, a prize winning weekly newspaper on Long Island. His column, "Pepper on the Side," became a staple of a number of newspapers in the country.

During the Korean War, after basic training, he was recruited by Armed Forces Press Service to serve in the Pentagon as the only Washington Correspondent for the service. His Washington by-line went all over the world and was published in every publication put out by the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great and engrossing summer read!, July 9, 2001

By 

"wangel2" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mourning Glory (Hardcover)

I consider myself to be a reader of discriminating and eclectic tastes. Favorite authors? James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Anton Chekhov, Agatha Christie, John Irving (and even Jude Deveraux, I guiltily admit). Recently, I've added Warren Adler to that list! Granted, he definitely is no Hemingway in terms of talent and lasting literary value, but he knows how to write an engrossing read. He's not very well-known (he seems to have been more popular in the 70s and 80s), but definitely should be! One of his old novels, "The War of the Roses," somehow managed to find its way into my family's bookshelves, and, bored one day this summer, I decided to pick it up. I didn't expect much, and so I was very pleasantly surprised. I couldn't put it down; it was a fascinating story of the worst divorce imaginable and a great read. So I decided to try some of his other novels, and bought the ebook of "Mourning Glory." The great plot is what hooked me in at first. It's about an attractive Palm Beach woman in her thirties Grace Sorentino who is fired from her job at Saks, and, with little money and a teenage daughter who wants the better things in life, devises a plan to lure a rich widower to her side. By going to funerals of their recently deceased wives, of all things! Of course, things don't quite turn out as planned (she didn't factor falling in love with her prey into the equation) and Grace, the heroine of the novel, must deal with the consequences. "Mourning Glory" has romance, humor, drama, a wonderful portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship, and even steamy sex scenes to spice things up a bit. Not to mention a neo-Nazi skinhead! Adler, an older middle-aged man, somehow manages to make his two main female characters, Grace and her daughter, very real and vibrant, and he really seems to have a lot of insight into the female mind and psyche. I liked the fact that Adler wrote about people with flaws, whose lives were far from perfect but whom you empathized with because of those flaws. "Mourning Glory" is definitely not your typical romance, and it was refreshing! I would've liked more development of the daughter Jackie, however. She was a very interesting character, in my opinion, and more on her teenage, tortured soul would've been welcome. But I'm being very nitpicky there! There's not much to complain about. In short, if you're looking for a great and fast-paced read that would be perfect on a summer vacation or on the beach, or anywhere really, you can't go wrong with "Mourning Glory" by Warren Adler. Adler has his own website http://www.warrenadler.com with more information on "Mourning Glory" and his other novels.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing!, March 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Mourning Glory (Hardcover)

I picked up this book on sale and thought what a treat, since I enjoyed the cynicism and nastiness in Mr. Adler's the War of the Roses... Unfortunately, I have to agree with all the other reviewers who have given this novel a low mark. It was pure dribble all the way through!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars don't get other folks ++ review, February 21, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Mourning Glory (Hardcover)

I got this book in audiobook, which should be really easy to take. It was not. The book is full of overly sentimental sentiments, old-fashioned ideas about male and females roles and relationship, and corny lines. It's plays on the couple's explicit sex life until I start to say "who cares." And, it goes on and on and on--ad nauseum about how guilty the lead character feels. Okay, okay, I get it. I could not even finish the story--and again, it was a book on tape.