Caroline's daughters

Fülszöveg

The aspects of ourselves that we keep hidden, the secrets that persist within families, the silences that distance us from one another (even from those dearest to us), the universal barriers around ourselves, and the equally universal desire to break through them into closeness, are at the heart of Alice Adams's enthralling new novel.
The place is San Francisco. The time: the late 1980s. We enter the interconnected lives of a mother and her five daughters (by three marriages)—women as diverse and diverting as the city they inhabit.
Caroline Carter, impeccably New England, "almost rich and almost old," is just back after a five-year absence abroad. She is happy to be near her daughters, yet uneasy about how much of a mother she still should be—uneasy about the paths their lives have taken . . .
Sage, forty-one, the eldest, dark, too thin, is a "bravely unsuccessful" ceramicist with a too handsome, too young, and probably unfaithful husband. She is still friends (and secretly in... Tovább

Fülszöveg

The aspects of ourselves that we keep hidden, the secrets that persist within families, the silences that distance us from one another (even from those dearest to us), the universal barriers around ourselves, and the equally universal desire to break through them into closeness, are at the heart of Alice Adams's enthralling new novel.
The place is San Francisco. The time: the late 1980s. We enter the interconnected lives of a mother and her five daughters (by three marriages)—women as diverse and diverting as the city they inhabit.
Caroline Carter, impeccably New England, "almost rich and almost old," is just back after a five-year absence abroad. She is happy to be near her daughters, yet uneasy about how much of a mother she still should be—uneasy about the paths their lives have taken . . .
Sage, forty-one, the eldest, dark, too thin, is a "bravely unsuccessful" ceramicist with a too handsome, too young, and probably unfaithful husband. She is still friends (and secretly in love) with her stepfather, Caroline's second husband (Sage knows she is "a woman who loves too much," but so what?) . . .
Liza, thirty-five, the pretty one, though a bit on the heavy side, is everyone's favorite ("I'm the non-achieving sister"). She is married happily to a psychiatrist, mother of three children, victim of the "perfect life" which keeps her from her deepest desire . . .
Fiona, thirty-three, well-off and well-turned-out, owner of this year's trendy California-cuisine restaurant on Potrero Hill (So funny, Caroline thinks, Fiona really can't cook) is self-absorbed beyond even her mother's patience . . .
Jill, thirty-one, the secretive one, is a lover of all things expensive. She is a lawyer who supplements
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her more-than-adequate income in a startling and dangerous way . . .
Portia, twenty-five, the youngest (and, for Caroline, the most problematic) is a sometime poet, sometime horticulturist—a loner who manages to involve herself disastrously in other people's lives . . .
Following Caroline's daughters over the course of a year, we see them in relation to their husbands and lovers. We see their deceptions, pleasures, triumphs and setbacks. And through it all, we watch Caroline—elegant and self-possessed even as her own life irrevocably changes.
Once again, Alice Adams has demonstrated her mastery of the family maze, her astonishing perception of the delicate and complex threads that bind us to one another.
Alice Adams is the author of six previous novels— Careless Love, Families and Survivors, Listening to Billie, Rich Rewards, Superior Women and Second Chances—and four collections of stories: Beautiful Girl, To See You Again, Return Trips and After You've Gone. She lives in San Francisco. Vissza