A Glimpse of Scarlet: And Other Stories - Softcover

Robinson, Roxana

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060981164 ISBN 13: 9780060981167

Publisher: Perennial, 1992

Synopsis

These stories of upper-middle-class family life concern relationships between men and women, mistrust and infidelities, broken families, and stepparents and stepchildren. With characteristic delicacy and empathy, Robinson probes the terrible emotional constrictions her characters suffer in such stories as "Handicapped," "The Time for Kissing," and "Tears Before Bedtime." Other stories trace the complexities of friendship and forgiveness and the devotion and resignation of old age. In the title story, a suspicious wife makes much of her husband's casual lunch date, recalling her own affair and that of a couple seen by chance on the street--in "a moment of widening freedom, possibility" implied merely by "a glimpse of scarlet" in the woman's scarf or sleeve. Robinson's stories have been published in The New Yorker , Atlantic , and Southern Review . She is also the author of the novel Summer Light ( LJ 6/1/88) and Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life ( LJ 9/15/89). A touchingly intimate, human collection.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Fourteen finely wrought and revealing stories about the not- so-gentle sting of WASP-y love, from novelist (Summer Light) and biographer (Georgia O'Keeffe) Robinson. In ``The Time for Kissing,'' a grown daughter, Susannah, sorts through images from her past in an effort to come to some sort of understanding with her willfully remote mother. Just as Susannah is ready to risk it--to try to cross old barricades of correctness-- her mother manages to rebuff her in a final, and desperately sad, fashion. ``Second Chances'' deals with the permutations and complications of trying to arrange a Thanksgiving dinner in a family of second marriages where there are stepchildren and in- laws, and where all the connections seem fragile and too-strong at the same time. In ``Tears Before Bedtime,'' a woman caught in the downward spiral of a bitter marriage uses a witty public argument at a dinner party to decimate her husband--but later at home, in a moving moment of truth, has to face up to his side of things. These stories all involve people of privilege: servants are part of the background; vacation houses and trips to Europe come with the territory. Robinson is wonderfully adept at conveying the code of this world. Unpleasant things--pain, blackmail, infidelity--are masked by convention, by chitchat, by small, polite smiles. In ``Graduation,'' a woman attending her son's boarding-school graduation has to deal with the dreaded prospect of meeting up with her ex-husband, an angry man who hasn't spoken to her in years. She carries it off and believes that everything has gone well--until she understands that she's been betrayed, deeply betrayed, in a way she'll never forget. There are strong moments of self-revelation in many of these pieces, including the title story, as well as ``Daughter'' and ``Friendship in a Foreign Country.'' Once more, Robinson demonstrates that she can take well-used New Yorker-ish themes and give them a whole new shine. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

The privileged world of the WASP upper middle class serves as the backdrop for Robinson's subtly powerful tales, many of which focus on dysfunctional families.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Perennial
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0060981164
• ISBN 13: 9780060981167
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208