Gloria - Softcover

Maillard, Keith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006481752 ISBN 13: 9780006481751

Publisher: Harpercollins Canada, 1999

Synopsis

On her last trip to New York with her mother, she'd been fitted for a new formal, one that was older and more sophisticated than she'd ever worn before; it was smoke and silver, princess length, quite low cut, and she didn't want to wear it-would have preferred to revert to her jeune fille Cinderella persona-but she didn't have any choice; she couldn't very well get another one made at this late date. Preparing to do her makeup, looking in the mirror at her freshly scrubbed, bare skin, she saw a sad, tired girl who wanted to stay home with a book. Maybe if I put on lots and lots of makeup, she thought, just gobs of it, nobody will be able to see me at all.

Gloria has all the Traina-Norell dresses and Ben Zuckerman suits a girl could ask for. She is a prom queen, a popular sorority girl-class of '57. Her father is vice president of a steel company and her mother is a society matron. Gloria is attractive, popular, and pinned-engaged to be engaged. So why is she so dissatisfied? A story set in John O'Hara territory, Gloria is a vivid portrayal of the class structure of America in that era and of the assumptions concerning gender that underlay society. It is about friendship, loyalty, sexuality, and love, and the dynamics of Gloria's family. But mostly it is about Gloria and her last summer at home before setting out for the larger world that she longs to engage.

Reminiscent of Carnal Knowledge and By Love Possessed, this is the story of a young woman whose courage, intellectual integrity, and creative gifts defy expectations.

About this title

About the Author

Keith Maillard was born and raised in Wheeling, West Virginia; graduated from the University of West Virginia; and teaches at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Gloria was short-listed for the Governor General's Award.

From Publishers Weekly

Gloria Merriman Cotter is a smart upper-class girl caught in the restrictive social mores of late 1950s America and torn between conformity and self-realization. Maillard (Light in the Company of Women) tenderly and meticulously charts his heroine's struggle to alternately fit in, stand out and not disappoint anybody, least of all herself. Gloria spends her last summer at home, between college and graduate school, when she returns to the country club crowd of Raysburg, a small West Virginia steel town. The daughter of a self-made executive and a misplaced New England society matron, Gloria knows she's expected to marry the right sort of man. Does that mean that her dream of grad school at Columbia University to study poetry with Lionel Trilling is doomed? With insight and clarity, Maillard illuminates the confused, complex, sometimes trivial but always heartfelt thoughts of a young woman trying to fathom her place in the world. Traumatized by cruel classmates at boarding school, Gloria begins high school desperate to appear "normal," an enterprise guided by the voice in her head that she calls "secret watcher." Doggedly, she remakes herself, skillfully plotting her rise to cheerleader and then prom queen. She feels like an impostor, however, because under her carefully crafted disguise of crinolines and curled eyelashes, Gloria is a brilliant, intellectual bookworm. At Briarville College, she is torn between her sorority's finicky rules and her desire to be taken seriously as a poetry scholar. Maillard's precise prose weaves the long, meandering story together admirably, though the details, particularly of her fashion dilemmas, can be monotonous. Yet most of the subplots, notably the passage of Gloria's parents into midlife, propel the story and give context for Gloria's journey. After following Gloria through her tough coming-of-age, readers will wonder what happens to this resourceful but consummate good girl, in her high heels, girdle and kid gloves, when she enters Columbia on the cusp of the '60s. Major ad/promo. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harpercollins Canada
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0006481752
• ISBN 13: 9780006481751
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1