The Rest of Life
Three Novellas
Published on 6. August 2013
272 pages
978-1-4804-1499-0 (ISBN)
Description
Three masterful tales of women in the grips of complicated and dangerous loves
The Rest of Life is comprised of three spellbinding novellas about women in love. In Immaculate Man, an agnostic New York divorcée finds herself in thrall to an unexpected passion for a Catholic priest-who is also desired by a former superior-and who becomes unmoored by the affair. Living at Home is set in London, and depicts the strange union between an English woman-a thrice-divorced doctor who works with autistic children-and an Italian man-a free-roaming journalist addicted to high-risk assignments. The title novella centers on the memories of an elderly Italian woman, recalling her days as a girl in the bloom of first love, who embarked on a suicide pact with her boyfriend, but was the only one not to follow through.
The Rest of Life is comprised of three spellbinding novellas about women in love. In Immaculate Man, an agnostic New York divorcée finds herself in thrall to an unexpected passion for a Catholic priest-who is also desired by a former superior-and who becomes unmoored by the affair. Living at Home is set in London, and depicts the strange union between an English woman-a thrice-divorced doctor who works with autistic children-and an Italian man-a free-roaming journalist addicted to high-risk assignments. The title novella centers on the memories of an elderly Italian woman, recalling her days as a girl in the bloom of first love, who embarked on a suicide pact with her boyfriend, but was the only one not to follow through.
More details
Person
Born in New York to a Catholic mother and a father who converted to Catholicism from Judaism, Mary Gordon was raised in a strict, religious environment and at one time considered becoming a nun. She attended Barnard College and in 1978 published her first novel,
Final Payments. She followed that with
The Company of Women(1981), both books exploring the challenges faced by young Catholic women as they make their way in the larger, secular world. Her other novels include
Men and Angels(1985),
The Other Side(1989),
Spending(1998), and
Pearl(2005), the story of an Irish-American mother forced to reexamine her faith and political ideals as her daughter slowly starves herself during a hunger strike in Ireland.
With the The Shadow Man: A Daughter's Search for Her Father(1996), Gordon turned her attention to her own family, examining the mysterious and complicated life of her father, a Jewish convert to Catholicism who died when she was seven, leaving behind a web of lies and half-truths about his past.
Gordon is also the author of three novellas, collected in The Rest of Life; a book of short stories called Temporary Shelter(1987); and two collections of essays, Good Boys and Dead Girls(1992) and Seeing Through Places: Reflections on Geography and Identity(2003). In 2000, she published a biography of Joan of Arc.
She has received the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writers Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is also a three-time recipient of the O. Henry Award for best short story. The Company of Womenwas a finalist for the National Book Award in 1983.
Gordon currently teaches literature and writing at Barnard College.
With the The Shadow Man: A Daughter's Search for Her Father(1996), Gordon turned her attention to her own family, examining the mysterious and complicated life of her father, a Jewish convert to Catholicism who died when she was seven, leaving behind a web of lies and half-truths about his past.
Gordon is also the author of three novellas, collected in The Rest of Life; a book of short stories called Temporary Shelter(1987); and two collections of essays, Good Boys and Dead Girls(1992) and Seeing Through Places: Reflections on Geography and Identity(2003). In 2000, she published a biography of Joan of Arc.
She has received the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writers Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is also a three-time recipient of the O. Henry Award for best short story. The Company of Womenwas a finalist for the National Book Award in 1983.
Gordon currently teaches literature and writing at Barnard College.
Content
- Intro
- Cover
- Title Page
- Contents
- IMMACULATE MAN
- LIVING AT HOME
- THE REST OF LIFE
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Copyright
