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I love laundromats - it‘s dedicated reading time!
“Anna? We‘re recording.”
The camera pans up from a long crack in the linoleum floor to rest on the hunched-over frame of a girl.
#FirstLineFriday
@ShyBookOwl
@BarbaraTheBibliophage @Cinfhen @alisiakae
I picked this psychological thriller from my tbr pile for an easy post Xmas read + it was a roller coaster read + starts my #booked2023 with a #twist.
Sue is a mother whose 15yr old dtr is in a coma after what appears to be an apparent suicide, when sue finds Charlotte's diary she suspects something is wrong which triggers memories of her life 20 yrs earlier.
This book, published in 1980 when the author was 65, astonished me. It won the Toronto Book Award in 1981, but the book or the author are not well-known. Weinman in her afterword calls it an "interior feminist espionage novel", & because the protagonist Shirley, alias Lola, travels from city to city to meet her mysterious lover who works for an international organisation called The Agency, I thought this would be Graham Greene-esque territory.
Thanks #NYRBBookClub for another really good read! This is definitely not a book I would have picked up on my own. While it's hard to say that this story is “enjoyable“ I did enjoy the feverish paranoid quality of the characters stories and imaginings. I started out trying to sort out what was true and what wasn't and then realized it would be better just to go with the flow. A truly unique and mesmerizing read.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
#NYRBBookClub
And the final question:
According to Weinman's afterword, Weinzweig struggled with the ending of her novel for over a year. Did you find the ending satisfactory?
#NYRBBookClub
It has been posited that Shirley is suffering from schizophrenia, but as was the case in the April NYRB selection, it is evident throughout the book she has a curiosity in & appreciation for art. Do you think this was autobiographical? Or do you think there was something else at work?
#NYRBBookClub
Shirley has several unusual encounters in a series of vignettes throughout the book. What did you make of these encounters? Are there any that struck you as particularly memorable or unusual & how did they change your expectations of the novel?
#NYRBBookClub
In the Chicago Tribune, Kathleen Rooney writes, “Perhaps better than any spy thriller, it invites readers to contemplate the mystery of how, in a society where the pressures and expectations put on wives and mothers are great enough to drive anyone mad, maybe so-called sanity itself is the greatest deception and putative normalcy the flimsiest disguise.“ Do you agree with Rooney's statement?