A Widow for One YearMarion Cole, a thirty-nine-year-old woman -- and a faithful wife for twenty-two years -- has an affair with a sixteen-year-old boy; she then leaves her philandering husband. And also abandons her four-year-old daughter, Ruth. By the age of thirty-six, Ruth Cole has become an internationally acclaimed novelist. But she is an angry, impulsive, often self-contradictory, unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career, and she distrusts her judgement in men, for good reason. Five years later, at forty-one, Ruth Cole is a widow and a mother. Ruth's child is the same age Ruth was when her mother left her. Now Ruth is about to fall in love for the first time. A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force. Both richly comic and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief. |
Contents
SUMMER 1958 | 8 |
Unhappy Mothers | 20 |
A Masturbating Machine | 47 |
Copyright | |
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Allan Amsterdam asked Eddie bad boyfriend bathroom bedroom Bergstraat breasts Bridgehampton called child Cole's Conchita Daddy daughter dead door drive Dutch Eddie O'Hare Eddie told Eddie's Eduardo Exeter eyes face father felt four-year-old fucking Gin Lane girl going Graham Graham Greene hair hand Hannah Harry Hoekstra heard imagine John Irving Lane look Maarten Marion Minty moleman Mommy morning mother nanny never Nico Jansen night novel novelist Penny Pierce photographs pink cashmere prostitute prostitute's red-light district remember Rooie Ruth asked Ruth Cole Ruth replied Ruth thought Ruth told Ruth's Ruthie Sagaponack Scott Saunders Sergeant Hoekstra sexual she'd shoes sleep someone sound squash stopped story summer talk Ted Cole Ted told Ted's tell Thomas and Timothy told Eddie turned Vaughn Vratna walked whispered who'd window women writing young