Necessary Madness [Hardcover]

Jen Crowell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 10, 1997

After only eight years of marriage, Gloria Burgess's husband dies of leukemia, and for the sake of her son, she tries to stave off the madness of grief by trying to learn lessons from her own parents' failed relationship. A first novel. 150,000 first printing. $150,000 ad/promo. BOMC Feat Alt.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Not that age should matter in the grand scheme of things, but Jenn Crowell was barely 18 when she sold this first novel to her publishers. Unlike much fiction by very young people, however, Necessary Madness does not trade on hipness, teenage angst or underage promiscuity. The novel is the story of 30-year-old Gloria Burgess coming to grips with the premature death from cancer of a beloved husband. Kirkus Reviews hailed Necessary Madness (set in England, though Crowell is American) for its fully developed characters and maturity of content.

From Publishers Weekly

Whatever the qualities of this first novel?and they are notable, on both sides of the ledger?the qualities of its author are going to steal the spotlight in the months to come, in large part because of the publisher's promo campaign. Crowell was a 17-year-old high-school senior when she completed this work. Her writing teacher at Goucher College, novelist Madison Smartt Bell, read it during Crowell's freshman year and sent it to his agent, who sold it. Surprisingly, the novel is no story of adolescent passage. It is, rather, the thoughtful tale, filled with many small insights, of how a woman in her 30s weathers grief and learns to live with it. When British painter Bill Burgess dies of leukemia, his American wife, Gloria, is left alone in London with her young son. Gloria's first-person voice is engagingly worldly as she worries about her son, swings between grief and numbness and revisits her past?particularly her relationships with her mother, a cold perfectionist, and her father, a weak intellectual who committed suicide. These parents suffer from some slick, even stereotypical characterization. More troublesome is the scantiness of the plot, which is mechanically propelled by the question of whether Gloria will agree to a retrospective of her husband's work organized by a cloyingly sensitive friend. Crowell's prose is so clean that, at times, readers may be lulled by its cadences into mistaking rudimentary psychological insight for something edgier, deeper, finer. In fact, Crowell has fashioned an above-average domestic drama?nothing less, but nothing more. 150,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; BOMC selection; film rights to Sony Entertainment; audio rights to Brilliance and Books on Tape; foreign rights sold in 10 countries.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; First edition. edition (March 10, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399142525
• ISBN-13: 978-0399142529
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #912,096 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

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Necessary Questions, February 14, 2000

By 

Jennifer E. Sertl (Pittsford, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Necessary Madness (Hardcover)

In Jenn Crowell's Necessary Madness we get introduced to a mother and son enduring a "spot in time"-a husband and fathers recent death. Reading this story is like looking into a kaleidoscope by which your own life experiences shape the picture that you see with your eyes squinted. I valued the book for the questions it raised about death: Is better for someone to die suddenly or is it better to have time for closure? Why do some people surrender their lives to suicide while others grasp on to the beauty of life even as white blood cells over take them? How can a parent be authentic in grieving when it is as Crowell reminds us such a selfish process? These questions surfaced for me during the reading. It is a heartfelt story that reminds us that as long as there is purpose . . .there is life.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Maze Into the Self, December 27, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Paris, France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Necessary Madness (Hardcover)

A couple months ago I read Jenn Crowell's first book, Necessary Madness. I wept, I shook, and I told anyone in my proximity to read it! I felt in awe to read a first writer's talented work and to have been brought into the realm of her character, Gloria Burgess: her love, her loss, her renewal. The story was wonderfully woven, complete with nearly every emotion a woman in Gloria's position would experience. Miss Crowell's brillant choice of words created a memorable image I am not soon to forget. Anyone who is planning on getting married or who wants to fall in love or who is already there and beyond should read Crowell's take on what love is, or at least what it should be. It's honest emotions, honest desires and honest madness, and above all a beautiful debut for an author I'd love to read again and again.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crowell is a gifted young writer, January 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Necessary Madness (Mass Market Paperback)

Overall, I found Jenn Crowell's book about Gloria Burgess, a schoolteacher grieving over the recent loss of her husband well-crafted, engaging, and moving, with only a few irritating slides into melodrama and some unrealistically analytical dialog. However, Crowell more than compensates with her truthful, human renderings of people, events and emotions. This is a great achievement, especially taking into account the young age of the writer when it was first written and published. I highly recommend this one!