Customer Reviews

A Woman of Means

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Normally, after reading a book I have many things to say about it, some of which come easily and others which I struggle to put into words. After completing A Woman of Means by Peter Taylor, I felt a whole rush of half-formed ideas and feelings bubbling just below my consciousness, but which I was unable to articulate. I beleive this is because although the story is told in a straightforward style and is easy to follow, it's presented through the eyes of a intelligent,young narrator who's struggling to find a place for himself, whether it be at his school, in the city, or in his own family.

Much of his uncertainty comes from his inability to establish a firm relationship with a mother-figure, whether it be with the grandmother he describes while recalling his earliest memories in the rural South, or with his wealthy step-mother whose home he lives in with his father in St. Louis.

A mother to him seems to represent a home, which is something he has never really had, due to his constant moving from place to place with a father who is determined to make a name for himself. When his father begins to achieve some professional success, gets married to a wealthy young widow and they move into the woman's house, there finally seems to be a chance to develop roots in a town, at a school, and most importantly within a family.

The story focuses on the boy's gradual sense of belonging and how this belonging is eventually threatened by what he perceives as the disolution of his parents's marriage. It is a very complex examination of not just what the boy needs to be happy, but his father and step-mother as well, and includes the the themes of wealth/poverty, the city/country, moderness/ tradition, and love and reputation--all of which are relevant to our own age. It also contains the same mysterious quality of all great art, in that it encapsulates things that can only be truly assimulated, not through the mind, but through the heart.

I don't have an inkling as to how this tightly-crafted novel, circa 1950, happened to be re-published in 1996 by Piccador, but the discovery thereof is a bibliophiliac's treasure.

Other readers posting here have succinctly reported the plot which is written from the perspective of a pre-teen boy. But, the skill of the writer becomes apparent when - utilizing the same voice - he depicts what is happening to the ten-year-old youth as well as the 14-year one.

If one had read this in the 50's, say, at the time East Of Eden found its way to the shelves, the impression of greatness of Peter Taylor's slim opus could have been easily overlooked.

The irony is that reading it more than fifty years later, I find this coming-of-age story as heart-rending as any I have ever perused.

If you are reading this, than you are already considering the purchase of the soft-cover. Don't hesitate!

"Quite simply, there is not a better writer of fiction now at work in the United States.... In A WOMAN OF MEANS...the reader is transported into a place so faithfully similar to the real world, yet so imbued with a knowledge of it that none of us can hope to possess, that one is left breathless with admiration."

"No description of mere mortals or events of A WOMAN OF MEANS can indicate the particular kind of excitement it possesses--the excitement of being constantly on the verge of deep perceptions and deep interpretations."

I don't know how these reviews can look so recent