A Widow for One YearWe first meet Ruth Cole in the summer of 1958 when she walks in on her mother having sex with 16-year-old Eddie O'Hare, the assistant to Ruth's alcoholic father. The death of Ruth's older brothers (years before she was born) turns her mother, Marion, into a zombie who is unable to love her surviving daughter. Ted Cole is a semisuccessful writer and illustrator of disturbingly creepy children's novels. His womanizing habits prove he's "as deceitful as a damaged condom," but he remains the only stable figure in Ruth's life. The tempestuous tale fast-forwards to the year 1990 when Ruth's soaring writing career is faring far better than her lackluster love life. The final segment of the novel ends in 1995 when 41-year-old Ruth is ready to fall in love for the first time. |
Contents
The Inadequate Lamp Shade | 17 |
Summer Job | 23 |
Unhappy Mothers | 37 |
Marion Waiting | 44 |
Eddie Is Bored and Horny Too | 50 |
A Masturbating Machine | 70 |
Come Hither | 85 |
The Pawn | 99 |
Ruth Remembers Learning to Drive | 351 |
Two Drawers | 363 |
Pain in an Unfamiliar Place | 369 |
Ruth Gives Her Father a Driving Lesson | 381 |
A Widow for the Rest of Her Life | 390 |
The First Meeting | 409 |
Ruth Changes Her Story | 427 |
Not a Mother Not Her Son | 443 |
Ruths Right Eye | 109 |
Dumping Mrs Vaughn | 116 |
Why Panic at Ten OClock in the Morning? | 131 |
How the Writers Assistant Became a Writer | 145 |
Something Almost Biblical | 153 |
The Authority of the Written Word | 170 |
A Motherless Child | 180 |
The Leg | 197 |
Working for Mr Cole | 208 |
Leaving Long Island | 220 |
Eddie at FortyEight | 241 |
Ruth at ThirtySix | 260 |
The Red and Blue Air Mattress | 280 |
Allan at FiftyFour | 288 |
Hannah at ThirtyFive | 312 |
Ted at SeventySeven | 328 |
The Moleman | 455 |
Followed Home from the Flying Food Circus | 477 |
Missing Persons | 487 |
The Standoff | 494 |
Ruths First Wedding | 503 |
The Civil Servant | 517 |
The Reader | 524 |
The Prostitutes Daughter | 533 |
Sergeant Hoekstra Finds His Witness | 545 |
In Which Eddie OHare Falls in Love Again | 563 |
Mrs Cole | 583 |
Better Than Being in Paris With a Prostitute | 598 |
In Which Eddie and Hannah Fail to Reach an | 617 |
A Happy Couple Their Two Unhappy Friends | 636 |
Marion at SeventySix | 650 |