Ruth is equal parts infuriating and hurting. Like Karin, in Alice Munro’s “Rich as Stink”, these girls are angered and confused by the connections they observe between the adults in their lives. In “Thank You for the Lovely Tea”, readers meet Ruth when she is desperate to be out of
Maybe it was because I read this one immediately following Tales of Burning Love, so I was more completely immersed in Erdrich-ness than I have been, yet, in this reading project. Or, maybe its more prominent air of mysticism charmed me from the first whiff. Either way, I loved
Event hosted by Kaggsy's Ramblings Stuck in a Book #1977Club So much good women's fiction from 1977, from Margaret Atwood's Dancing Girls to Marilyn French's The Women's Room. But I reread Carol Shields' Unless last year and I wanted to reread another of hers. Enter, The
In “Madeline’s Birthday”, Madeline was sent to the Tracy family’s summer home: her divorced parents are elsewhere, living Madeline-free lives. “The Wedding Ring” tells a similar story, but from the daughter’s perspective: a first-person chronicle of the only child of a happily-divorced couple. The story begins quietly, as though
In “Madeline’s Birthday”, the sadness slips to the background, like it does in an Elizabeth Taylor story, with a hint of darkness besides. Madeline is a guest in the Tracy family’s summer home, and her seventeenth birthday affects every resident. Readers briefly inhabit the perspective of most inhabitants (even
