Temporarily abandoned by her overbearing husband amidst the chaos and decay of Los Angeles, Carla Verdi tries to run her home and bring up her son along traditional Italian lines. She finds solace in the friendship of Leo, a Catholic pries. 'Obedience', he teaches her, 'was the prime virtue taught in seminaries'. Thus armed with their private loyalties - he to his church, she to her marriage - they are swept towards temptation. 'A writer of stunning quality, a novelist of irony and compassion who observes her American scene with a refreshingly European detachment' - "Daily Telegraph". 'A novel of writhing ironies...a ruthless, penetrating and desolately funny book' - "Guardian". 'High-class, serious fun' - "Sunday Telegraph".
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Carroll & Graf Pubs. Nov. 1985. 230p. LC 85-17145. ISBN 0-88184-197-8. $17.95. f Upper-class Los Angeles, with its trendy morals and even more treacher ous hillsides, is no place for an Italian wife, even a modern one. Carla Verdi, separated from her domineering hus band, must cope with the ``phases'' of her 13-year-old son, the assaults of the weather, and the intricacies of her friends' love lives. Until, suddenly, she has a love life of her own, and, with her husband's return, complicated deci sions to make herself. O'Faolain plays with the meaning of the title, making it first ironic, then deadly serious, and back again, as Carla decides where her life and allegiance must be placed after 15 years of marriage. Well-written, with a subtle, insidious message. (O'Faolain also wrote Women in the Wall, No Country for Young Men, and Daughters of Passion ). Shelley Cox, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbon dale
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Julia O'Faolain was born in London in 1932. Educated at University College, Dublin, the University of Rome and the Sorbonne, she worked as a translator and language teacher before becoming a writer. Her works include the short story collections We Might See Sights! and Other Stories, Man in the Cellar and Daughters of Passion, and the novels Godded and Codded, Women in the Wall, No Country for Young Men, The Obedient Wife, The Irish Signorina and The Judas Cloth. She has edited (with husband Lauro Martines) Not in God's Image: Women in History from the Greeks to the Victorians. As Julia Martines she translated Two Memoirs of Renaissance Florence: The Diaries of Buonaccorso Pitti and Gregorio Dati.
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Weeks of rain had so distorted visibility that the Glen seemed to be under water and the mail van, nosing in, had the look of a bathyscaphe sent to probe its depths. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Terry Steele, Evie's Pop, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Sybil Steele, Dio Bacco, James James Morrison's Mother, Martin Luther, Southern California New!
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Weeks of rain had so distorted visibility that the Glen seemed to be under water and the mail van, nosing in, had the look of a bathyscaphe sent to probe its depths. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Terry Steele, Evie's Pop, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Sybil Steele, Dio Bacco, James James Morrison's Mother, Martin Luther, Southern California New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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