Plain Seeing: A Novel

by Sandra Scofield

Book Overview

In this "moving and accomplished tale" (DETROIT FREE PRESS), an American Book Award-winning writer tells of one woman's search for the dead mother she never knew and the teenage daughter she never... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060173424
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Harpercollins
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 1.0" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

A good read

This book is well written and compelling. It's actually two stories about the lives of two women--a mother and a daughter--the first part ends when the daughter is born, the second begins several years after the mother has died, so we never see the mother and daughter on the "stage" together.Scofield writes beautifully and tells a good story. Part one was a bit slow at times--in the beginning especially--and because it takes place in the first half of the 20th century, I felt at times it veered just a touch into cliche, ie, our idea of history, versus what it was really like back then. Part two is excellent and gripping. You really feel for this woman as she becomes an adult and mother herself, who is utterly haunted by the loss of her own mother, and because of this not much of a mother to her own daughter and a pretty awful wife to her seemingly decent husband. Scofield seems more comfortable writing about this character because she lives in Scofield's own times. I recommend this book!

Like a good photograph....it stays with you...

I read a lot of books....I usually start one with great expectations and turn the final page with the resignation of good time, ill-spent."Plain Seeing," however, is quite different. I truly savored each page and was sorry when the story was over. I'll read more Scofield. She's my kind of writer....she tells a compelling story, fills it with an odd-ball mix of characters, and lets the chips fall where they may. In other words, she puts real life into her work. Read this book!

Probably Sandra Scofield's best book to date.

I was riveted by this book. The depths of the characters, the seamless storytelling and the immense human quality is gripping. The intristices between women, between mother and daughter is eloquent. Read this book, it's excellent.

Loved it in Denver.

The Kirkus Review doesn't begin to do this book justice. Scofield writes from a place knowing and wise and in a voice haunting and beautiful. Reading Plain Seeing is little bit like sitting down over a letter from an old friend -- and hoping for a happy ending. Truly a book to be savored.

Hard To Put Down

This book held my attention and was satisfying from beginning to end. I will recommend it to others. The review from Kirkus was misleading.