It Had to Be You: The Joan and Ernest Story - Softcover
Book by Malouf, Melissa
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Melissa Malouf grew up and was educated in Southern California. For the last many years, she has been teaching literature and creative writing at Duke University, where she is an award-winning professor. One of the stories in her first book, No Guarantees, was awarded the coveted Pushcart Prize.
From Kirkus Reviews:
This slight and elliptical portrait of a marriage, set in southern California, mimics the brittle repartee of Joan Didion's early fiction, and those are the good parts. Otherwise, the author of No Guarantees (1990, published under the name Melissa Lentricchia) fails to shape this narrative into anything significant. In fact, Malouf seems to just give up at the end, providing several different and equally fanciful endings. But none of this self-conscious play disguises a novel with no direction. Aside from their terse dialogue, Ernest Warner and Joan Stuart are less interesting than their phantom parents: His include a cutting, campy Hollywood voice-over actor father who lives with an equally sharp roommate, and a mother who returns stateside from self-exile in Paris for her husband's funeral, only to announce that she's not really completely lesbian. No less colorful are Joan's doctor father and her glamorous mother, who sets up her daughter with a male prostitute on her 21st birthday so that she'll be properly schooled in the boudoir. No wonder Joan doesn't want children; she even heads to Mexico for an abortion in the early '60s. A geologist, Ernest can't penetrate his wife's cool exterior--she's a smart MBA who owns a successful dress shop in Palm Springs, where they build a beautiful house. Ernest dallies with others, meanwhile, loses his eye in a fishing accident, and seeks renewal in the desert. Joan welcomes menopause, and throws her family mementoes into the sea. Together, they attend a murder trial. A fiction that mirrors its subjects: passionless and pointless. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherAvisson Pr Inc
- Publication date1997
- ISBN 10 1888105194
- ISBN 13 9781888105193
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages169
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It Had to Be You: The Joan and Ernest Story
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(1997)
ISBN 10: 1888105194
ISBN 13: 9781888105193
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. 1st. Signed by Milessa Malouf, otherwise unmarked. Glossy dust jacket curls at edges. Binding square & firm. Signed by Author. Seller Inventory # 101731
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Book Description First Edition. Fine book. As New THIS BOOK IS SIGNED and inscribed to the previous owner. We provide PROTECTIVE packaging. Photos of our books are always available upon request. SELLING USED AND RARE BOOKS ON ABE SINCE 1997. GERMAN & FRENCH CUSTOMERS PLEASE CONTACT US USING THE LINK ABOVE. Seller Inventory # 210924a6a1c8c2b8461c4a069e4a356b
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It Had to Be You : The Joan & Ernest Story
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ISBN 13: 9781888105193
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ISBN 13: 9781888105193
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Book Description PAPERBACK. Condition: Collectible; Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: As New. First Edition. This hardcover book is square and tight. The boards and spine have no wear with pristine lettering. The pages and endpages are clean, with no markings or folds. The dustjacket is As New. Original Price is intact. Not ex-lib. No remainder mark. Signed by the Author on the title page with the following personalized inscription in her hand: "For Gwen, with all good wishes". Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 003377
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