Slightly Like Strangers (Bantam New Fiction) [Paperback]

Emily Listfield (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bantam New Fiction | Publication Date: October 1, 1988

Amanda and Sam, from Listfield's Variations in the Night, move in together, and as the masks of courtship are stripped away, readers see what happens when intimacy grows, facades and defenses break down, and lovers feel "slightly like strangers".

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Admirers of Listfield's Variations in the Night will welcome the reappearance here of jaded native New Yorker Amanda and solid Midwesterner Sam, who both fear their emotions and, above all, the resulting vulnerability when these feelings are made known. Nevertheless, love inspires them to marry, although they preserve the tentative hope that they'll "always be slightly like strangers to each other." Fashionable readers may enjoy the trendy Manhattan settings and the snappy dialogue" 'So now what do we do?' " asks Sam on their wedding night. " 'Buy a condominium, have two children and get a divorce.' 'That's fine for our long-range plans, but I was thinking about tonight.' " Their easy career successes, the absence of all problems save the interpersonal, and the simplistic psychological studies of Amanda's and Sam's families have the patness of a made-for-TV movie, albeit a pleasant one. Despite Listfield's obvious mastery of the felicitous phrase and her wry observations, her story is thin and not particularly compelling.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Sam and Amanda, a New York couple in their early 30s, are struggling to forge a relationship. Unfortunately, their personalities and experiences, so different and in many ways opposite, serve to erect barriers to honesty and commitment. Amanda, a lifelong New Yorker and the more experienced in relationships, sees long-term commitment as confining; Sam, from a small Ohio town, likes his life neat and orderly and feels threatened by Amanda's restlessness. As a look at the problems of communication in contemporary relationships, this novel rings true in many small details; but it is marred by a surfeit of stereotypes and a cloying prose style that too often employs three adjectives and adverbs where one would do. Lonnie Beene, West Texas State Univ. Lib., Canyon
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First edition. edition (October 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553345389
• ISBN-13: 978-0553345384
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,733,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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