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Seller's Description:
New York. 1979. Delacorte Press. 1st American Printing. Some Very Slight Traces Of Foxing To the Edges & Slightly Scuffing Near Top Of Boards, Otherwise Very Good in Dustjacket. 0440059283. A Seymour Lawrence Book. 371 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Mike Stromberg. keywords: Literature America Women. FROM THE PUBLISHER-In her first novel Maureen Freely has written a brilliant comedy of manners. All the pride and prejudice lurking behind the bright rhetoric of women's liberation, permissive child-rearing, open marriage, the nuclear family, and casual sex are brought to life in this delightfully wicked satire. The time is 1970. The locale, a New England college town. The mothers helper is Laura, a lonely college freshman who takes a job with the Pyles: a semi-radical chic family consisting of three small children, two older ‘children' masquerading as their academic parents, and a slew of hangers-on whom Kay, the mother, gathers around herself. The novel is the story of the year Laura spends in service to the Pyles and of Kay Pyle's progress as she sets out to liberate herself from the confining roles of wife and mother. It is at once a hilarious and tragic account of the disintegration of a family and its members, nuclear and ext ended, but most especially the children, from mere chaos into utter ruin. It is also the story of Laura's awakening perception of her strength and how she is initially sustained but ultimately trampled on by her enlightened employer's well-developed sense of gracious noblesse oblige. Maureen Freely's deadpan delivery underlines a wit that is biting but never strident. Her special talent is an ability to portray the fantasy world of children as it reflects the human folly of adults. ‘Maureen Freely's real power lies in a massive comic talent, sly and subtle and so flexible that her deft switch to tragedy comes almost unnoticed, with a mounting horror worthy of Shirley Jackson. '-NORA JOHNSON. inventory #40404.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
New York. 1979. Delacorte Press. 1st American Printing. Some Very Slight Traces Of Foxing To the Edges & Slightly Scuffing Near Top Of Boards, Otherwise Very Good in Dustjacket. 0440059283. A Seymour Lawrence Book. 371 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Mike Stromberg. keywords: Literature America Women. FROM THE PUBLISHER-In her first novel Maureen Freely has written a brilliant comedy of manners. All the pride and prejudice lurking behind the bright rhetoric of women's liberation, permissive child-rearing, open marriage, the nuclear family, and casual sex are brought to life in this delightfully wicked satire. The time is 1970. The locale, a New England college town. The mothers helper is Laura, a lonely college freshman who takes a job with the Pyles: a semi-radical chic family consisting of three small children, two older ‘children' masquerading as their academic parents, and a slew of hangers-on whom Kay, the mother, gathers around herself. The novel is the story of the year Laura spends in service to the Pyles and of Kay Pyle's progress as she sets out to liberate herself from the confining roles of wife and mother. It is at once a hilarious and tragic account of the disintegration of a family and its members, nuclear and ext ended, but most especially the children, from mere chaos into utter ruin. It is also the story of Laura's awakening perception of her strength and how she is initially sustained but ultimately trampled on by her enlightened employer's well-developed sense of gracious noblesse oblige. Maureen Freely's deadpan delivery underlines a wit that is biting but never strident. Her special talent is an ability to portray the fantasy world of children as it reflects the human folly of adults. ‘Maureen Freely's real power lies in a massive comic talent, sly and subtle and so flexible that her deft switch to tragedy comes almost unnoticed, with a mounting horror worthy of Shirley Jackson. '-NORA JOHNSON. inventory #6052.
