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FLY
AWAY HOME
With the same dazzling intensity and unwavering honesty that
characterized her novels WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME and BRAIDED
LIVES, Marge Piercy turns her attention to the central mysteries
of marriage and family life in her latest novel.
It seems to Daria Walker that her husband's behavior is getting
stranger and stranger - mysterious phone calls behind locked doors,
a letter in his wastebasket signed 'Lou' – and then, suddenly
and inexplicably, he tells her he is leaving her. Daria is shocked
and confused as he demands a divorce and tries to coerce her into
a settlement that will leave her penniless, even though she has
always paid her way as a successful cookbook writer and TV personality.
An all-too-familiar story, but one which, in Marge Piercy's skilful
hands, takes an unfamiliar turn as Daria is forced to investigate
the finances which have been exclusively Ross's province since
the day they married. |
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Her helplessness turns to rage then terror as her husband's secret life
reveals a horrifying mix of arson and murder - 'standard business practice'
as Ross calls it. As Daria struggles to understand the husband she is
losing, she finds her own life transformed, her values sharpened and altered,
her strong sense of family broadened and reshaped.
FLY AWAY HOME is a superb novel which not only asks what any of us can
really know about those we love and trust, but also gives a vivid picture
of an underworld in which unlikely people commit unlikely crimes behind
a facade of social respectability. It is a dazzling and suspense-filled
performance which will surprise and delight Marge Piercy's many readers,
and will bring her a new and even wider audience.
"...full of commonplace delights and loving detail about furniture,
animals, gardens, sex and, most delightfully, food. Daria Walker is
someone who really understands and respects simple pleasure, an attractive
quality surprisingly rare among fictional heroines and reminiscent of
Colette. FLY AWAY HOME is an exciting novel that takes on many big subjects
with ease."
--Alane Rollings, Chicago TRIBUNE
"FLY AWAY HOME is a taut, rich, vibrant story...a novel of ideas
about inno-cence and responsibility, about an individual's place in
society and in the changing shape of family...Piercy's most accessible
novel and, therefore, her most politically powerful one."
--Valerie Miner, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
'”A compelling tale, a bright, clear piece of fiction. "
--The Washington Post
"Miss Piercy's characters are the salt of the earth;'
-The New York Times Book Review
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