A Solitary Grief [Hardcover]

Bernice Rubens (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1992

A novel which centres around Alistair Crown, a psychiatrist who is unable to face up to his own problems. The author has also written "The Elected Member", "I Sent a Letter to My Love" and "A Five Year Sentence".

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Reading a Rubens novel (Mate in Three, Our Father, Sat on Edge--all 1987) requires an iron-nerved distance. Her cool tales about acrid domestic relations and solitary masturbatory griefs, rages, and obsessions, touched as they are with a bizarre comic irony, cut deep. Here, a London psychiatrist, cold as an arctic bean, germinates an evil seed. Dr. Alistair Crown's wife, Virginia, has just given birth to their first child, named ``Doris'' by an angry Virginia from a card she found in the flowers Alistair brought her--flowers purloined from a cemetery. Alistair is cheap as well as rotten. Doris is born with Down's syndrome, and Alistair will never look at the child's face. But he will touch her body (after covering her face) with what he considers one version of parental love, and then, obsessed, he will draw doodles of an imagined Doris face. Inevitably, Alistair and Virginia separate, and he continues to see patients. (Rubens wickedly skewers the workday of a bored psychiatrist). Into Alistair's office one day comes ``Esau,'' a huge man covered with hair like an animal. Rejected by his father, Esau strips before medical men to reverse his father's withering verdict, and Esau becomes Alistair's gentle friend (platonic). Esau's tragic end preludes another erasure of innocence when little five-year-old Doris is kidnapped. The anguish of temporarily reunited parents and grandparents as hours and days tick by has acid calms and tempests of unrelieved nightmare. The close is predictable, but such is Rubens's skill that the reader must plunge along to the end of a very direful road indeed. A teeth-grinding, chilling tale of human nastiness--in guises that are both horrible and most commonplace. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

'Bernice Rubens is a superb writer, compassionate, witty and bold... she is always fresh and surprising... original, memorable and brilliantly executed.' EVENING STANDARD 'Dazzling.' GUARDIAN 'Gripping.' NEW WOMAN 'Cruelly funny... her story moves with seeming ease between farce and tragedy...there are no sentimental evasions. You have been warned.' THE TIMES --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Trafalgar Square (February 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1856190579
• ISBN-13: 978-1856190572
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,504,076 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Rubens At Her Most Bizarre, But Humanistic Best!, February 7, 2006

By 

Avid Reader (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Solitary Grief (Hardcover)

I think I have now read every book (please write more) that Bernice Rubens has written. I have loved every single one (except Brothers, which reads like it was written by someone else.) A Solitary Grief is Rubens at her best. Bizarre is a good word for this story, but not unrealistic as everything in this story could, and probably has happened to someone somewhere. A brave writer, she tackles the most difficult of topics, in this case Downs Syndrome and (I'm sure there's a medical name for it) a man completely covered with hair like an ape. Alistair Crown,a psychiatrist and the main character, deals with both of these afflictions in surprisingly different ways. The Downs Syndrome child is his own daughter, whose face he cannot bring himself to look upon. The hairy man is a patient who first repels him, then becomes his best friend, bringing him a strange peace from his daily torments. The ending is startling, yet through Rubens superb story telling, completely understandable and believable. Not for the faint of heart, this is strongly visual and rawly emotional story. One of her best!

5.0 out of 5 stars Bizarre, June 8, 2003

By 

Fuchs Joan "joanfuchs" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Solitary Grief (Paperback)

Thoroughly human, the inability of a person to deal with something he thinks just not right, or the biggest disappointment of his life. Ultimately shocking, but in a very gripping way. Leaves you stunned.