Can't Quit You, Baby (Contemporary American Fiction) - Softcover

Douglas, Ellen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140121021 ISBN 13: 9780140121025

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 1989

Synopsis

“It is rare when a book this fine enters the world of contemporary American literature.” – The Boston Globe

Two women share a Mississippi household for fifteen years, rolling out piecrusts and making conversation. Cornelia is rich, white, and pampered, the mistress of the house, who oversees a seemingly perfect world of smooth surfaces and stubborn silence. Tweet, her housekeeper, is a poor, black, world-weary woman with a ghost-ridden past. As the years go by, Cornelia and Tweet each endure moments of uncertainty and despair; each, in her time of need, is rescued by the other.

In the footsteps of Southern writers like Peter Taylor, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor, Ellen Douglas celebrates the resiliency of the human spirit in this story of two women bound by transgression and guilt, memory and illusion, gratitude and love.

“Ellen Douglas is not just one of our best Southern novelists. She is one of our best American novelists.” – The New York Times Book Review

About this title

About the Author:

Ellen Douglas, whose real name is Josephine Haxton, was born in Natchez, Mississippi, and published her first novel, A Family's Affairs, in 1962. This first endeavor, as well as her short-story collection Black Cloud, White Cloud were both included in The New York Times Book Review's year's ten best listings. Her fourth novel, Apostles of Light, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1973. Now seventy-eight years old, she makes her home in Jackson, Mississippi.

From Library Journal:

Veteran Southern author Douglas's eighth work of fiction is the compelling story of two women: white and affluent Cornelia and her irascible black maid Tweet. They recall the traumatic events that have shaped their lives: Cornelia eloped from her mother's iron fist, saw her husband's painful death, and bore a widow's grief; Tweet protected herself from her hateful father's arson, forgave her unfaithful mate, and came into Cornelia's employ. Becoming close friends, they face even worse ordeals together. Douglas's sure diction, natural idiom, emotional complexity, and feminine sensitivity render this an exceptional novel. Despite the tangible themes of rage, guilt, and sorrow, the narrative is refreshing for its redemptive powers. Edward C. Lynskey, Documentation, Altantic Research Corp., Alexandria, Va.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0140121021
• ISBN 13: 9780140121025
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272