A Thousand Pardons is a sharp-edged yet surprisingly funny view of mid-life crisis, complacency in marriage, teen-age angst, and the dramatic turns these can taken when least expected. A privileged family in suburban upstate New York suddenly discovers serious fault lines in their lives when Helen realizes that the man she married so many years ago no longer exists. Oh, Ben drives to his law practice every day, sleeps in her bed, and eats her food, but interaction with her or their adopted teenaged daughter […]
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is Jeanette Winterson’s autobiographical novel about her upbringing by an evangelical Christian mother in England and her coming out as a lesbian. As with my previous review, The Golden Notebook, an underlying theme is alienation, a breaking up of the whole person and an attempt at putting it all back together again. In this case, the author struggles to reconcile religion, family and sexual preference. The main character, also named Jeanette, tells her story in retrospect and focuses on […]