A False Sense of Well Being (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

by Jeanne Braselton (Author) "I was married eleven years before I started imagining how different life could be if my husband were dead..." (more)
Key Phrases: one lady owner, green duck, Randolph Gap, Andy Leonard, Donna Lindsey (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this amiable expos‚ of a genteel enclave of the Deep South, where marriages disintegrate into strained truces, 38-year-old Jessie Maddox finds herself imagining all the ways her faultlessly upright but mind-numbingly boring banker husband, Turner, might plausibly die. A fall in the shower? A freak explosion in the basement? Anything would do. In lieu of murderous action, Jessie seeks the same false sense of well-being she prescribes to her psychiatric patients at the Glenville Wellness Center, like Wanda McNabb, a homemaker who actually has killed her husband. Then Jessie's best friend in Glenville Meadows, a suburban subdivision full of "Southern Living wives," confesses that she is involved in a steamy affair, and Jessie finds herself desperate for any change at all. In an effort to recapture her youth, she journeys to her hometown in Randolph Gap, Ala., where her mother a maker of macram‚ handbags and a fervent evangelical churchgoer still keeps house for her long-suffering father, and her wild sister, Ellen, is visiting with her son, Justin, and a full menagerie of birds. By contrast, dull Turner starts looking better. Finally, the gritty realities of smalltown limitations and universal disappointments steer the story away from a Thelma and Louise finale toward a more realistic but no less dramatic and ironic ending. Braselton's depiction of the plight of restless women and her brilliant descriptions of sheltered suburbia and smalltown life are delivered with scathing wit. (Oct. 2)Forecast: Blurbs from Anne Rivers Siddons, Kaye Gibbons, Lee Smith and Terry Kay suggest the slant and appeal of this novel, and should do much to capture readers' attention. An eight-city author tour and national print advertising will help.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal
A middle-aged wife has a midlife crisis. No surprises there, but Jessie Maddox's case is a bit twisted: she finds herself imagining various creative ways to do in her husband. An extraordinarily well-blurbed first novel.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345443128
• ISBN-13: 978-0345443120
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #785,068 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars learn what women really think :-), October 10, 2001

By	"darspann58" (Orlando, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A False Sense of Well Being (Hardcover)

Now that I'm a retired teacher and a divorced man in my 50s, I'm always trying to read so-called "women's books" to find out what women really think about things. And, wow, is it enlightening!

A newspaper friend got an advance copy of this novel and passed it along to me. The book is a double pleasure (in addition to being an education for me) because it's so well written,wise,and witty. In this book the women are the ones in charge, whether they're misbehaving or just trying to figure out their lives. I laughed out loud at some scenes, & remembered some of my own lost loves in my youth. I'm telling all my friends and fellow readers about it.

OPRAH, take notice! This one will really strike a chord with women readers, even if it does leave some of us men scared and a little worried to find out what's really on the minds of our women friends.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is just wonderful, October 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A False Sense of Well Being (Hardcover)

I just loved this book from the first sentence, which is undoubtedly the best opening line ever, and it stayed wonderful all the way through. It is very much about matters close to the heart -- love, death, family, marriage, the grief of childlessness, a search for happiness -- but it's also down-right, laugh-out-loud funny. As a fan of Southern fiction, I really enjoyed how this book manages to be uniquely Southern and yet universal in its themes and characters at the same time. This is just an amazing book, but especially so from a first time author. I hope she writes many more equally wonderful books.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning fiction debut!, October 9, 2001

By	Karen Johnson (from Tennessee & moving to Ga soon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A False Sense of Well Being (Hardcover)

I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of this new novel and it's absolutely WONDERFUL! The characters are funny and smart, and Jessie Maddox's desperate search for "well being" in her life takes some poignant and hilarious turns. Since that first experience with this story, I took the novel with me on a weekend trip to visit my parents and read it again, and enjoyed it all the more, learning even more about these complex and well drawn characters.

Three cheers for this new voice in Southern fiction! I'm an aspiring writer myself, and so the blurbs by the novelists Kaye Gibbons, Lee Smith, Anne Siddons, Terry Kay and Mary Hood (and others) caught my attention immediately and told me this was going to be a great read -- and the book did not disappoint. This one's going to be a bestseller, I just know it. Now I can't wait for a sequel of some kind -- because I want to know where Jessie goes from here. But whatever this new writer turns out in the future, I'll be watching and waiting!