|
|
Beverly Lowry ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Title to view full description
|
|
|
1 |
Beverly Lowry The Perfect Sonya
Viking Adult 067081413X / 9780670814138 Hardcover Very Good
067081413X VG/VG-. Owner's name inside front cover. From Publishers WeeklyThis new novel by the author of Daddy's Girl will add to her reputation as an original, talented writer; it is not, however, an entirely successful effort. Recalled from New York to her father's deathbed in Texas, Pauline searches for a reason to grieve for him through intricately manipulated flashbacks and dreams. What begins as a casual seduction of her aunt's husband develops a disorienting intensity for her. In New York, where Pauline returns to husband and acting career (her one great triumph has been in Chekhov, prompting a theater critic to call her "the perfect Sonya"), her emotional paralysis increases until the novel threatens to become a psychiatric case history. Pauline emerges as an unaffectedly honest and sensuous woman almost despite Lowry's unwillingness to integrate the vivid but discrete moments she painstakingly details. Pauline's return trip to visit the uncle some years later provides an unconvincingly simple resolution to the paradoxes of her character. The complex woman Lowry attempts to portray never assumes a clear synthesis. The reader might conclude that Pauline's anomie is a result of her fragmented personality, but one wants more from a novel than a do-it-yourself character analysisespecially with such an engaging heroine. (June 16pCopyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Library JournalPauline is a self-absorbed sometime actress ("Sonya" in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya ), sometime bar fish-tank swimmer, living in New York, trying to reconcile her memories of childhood in small-town Texas with her adult life. Returning to Texas for her father's final illness, Pauline is forced to confront the uncomfortable memories she thought she had "outgrown." She seeks out and begins an affair with her aunt's ex-husband, a grizzled ex-professor from her college days, and gets trapped by flooding rains at his remote cabin. The trip and its disturbing effect on Pauline lead to the dissolution of her marriage and a long bout with depression. Middling contemporary fiction of the self-discovery variety, not unappealing, not altogether successful. Lowry's previous work includes Daddy's Girl ( LJ 9/15/81). Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.Book DescriptionActress Pauline Terry is so successful in a performance of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya that one critic calls her "the perfect Sonya." But her life is not what she expected when she left Texas for Broadway. She swims in a fish tank in a New Jersey bar to make a living, most auditions do not result in callbacks, and her marriage is shaky.Called home by her father's imminent death, she confronts both the past she thought she'd left behind and her uncertain future. For solace she turns to her aunt's former husband, Will Hand, a professor and nature writer. But their affair is brief and leaves her more uncertain than ever.Back in New York, Pauline realizes that her life onstage cannot make up for the emptiness of her life offstage. Her return to Texas was a transforming experience, leading her ultimately to come to terms with her childhood memories, her marriage, her dramatic ambitions, and finally, herself.The Perfect Sonya, first published in 1987 by Viking Penguin, won the Jesse Jones Award for the Best Novel of 1987 from the Texas Institute of Letters. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.About the AuthorBEVERLY LOWRY is the author of the novels Breaking Gentle, Daddy's Girl, Emma Blue, and Come Back Lolly Ray, along with the nonfiction Crossed Over and the new Her Dream of Dreams. She has published short stories, essays, and book reviews and received awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others. Lowry lived in Texas for many years and now resides in Washington, D.C.
Price:
1.97 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart |
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
Lowry, Beverly The Perfect Sonya by Lowry, Beverly
New York, NY, U.S.A. Viking Penguin 1987 First Edition Hardcover/Ex-Library Fair
Fair/Good 067081413x c. 1987, pinkish/white bds. w/d.j., 242pp., (lt.shelf wear, corners lightly bumped, page ends?? of bds.soiling, spine slightly cocked, content clean and bright, d.j. taped to bds., very lt.edge wear, mylar cover)
Price:
5.95 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart |
|
|
|
