The Widow's Children

by Paula Fox

Book Overview

On the eve of their trip to Africa, Laura Maldonada Clapper and her husband, Desmond, sit in a New York City hotel room, drinking scotch-and-sodas and awaiting the arrival of three friends: Clara Hansen, Laura's timid, brow-beaten daughter from a previous marriage; Carlos, Laura's flamboyant and charming brother; and Peter Rice, a melancholy editor whom Laura hasn't seen for over a year. But what begins as a bon voyage party soon parlays into a bitter,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393319636
• ISBN13: 9780393319637
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 238 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Life, in 7 Chapters, 224 pages

Something happened on the way from childhood -- from wanting only, like Peter Rice, "to be good," or wanting to be free, or loved, or loving, or safe, or rich, or wanted-- to the widow's funeral. Like the best stories do, this one happens in the hearts and minds of its readers, borne there by the exactness of vision, the precision of craft, the sense of the messenger ever-grappling with the message. Andrea Barrett's essay is a bonus, a sensitive and intelligent reader-response that concludes with the proper advice: "The novel is itself, wholly itself; there is no way to comprehend it except to read it."