Tully - Softcover

Simons, Paullina

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312954212 ISBN 13: 9780312954215

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1995

Synopsis

The time is the late 1970s. The place is the windswept heartland of America. The woman is Tully-- defiant young rebel with an agonizing secret, devoted friend faced with a shattering betrayal, impassioned lover haunted by a man whose touch is more powerful than all her pain.

But in the years to come, beyond the torments and marvels of adolescence, into a world where men will vie for her and lie to her, Tully will dare to win everything, and risk losing it all, in one raw, reckless gamble of the heart.

From Paullina Simons comes an astonishing novel about passion and loss, love and revelation; about friendship that endures through lifetimes, and even beyond death; and about one unforgettable woman named Tully, struggling to make sense of it all.

About this title

About the Author:

Paullina Simons was born in Russia in 1963. As a child, she moved to New York City, and attended colleges in Long Island, New York, London, England and Lawrence, Kansas. She has worked as a translator and business writer; Tully is her first novel. She lives on Long Island.

From Kirkus Reviews:

In her first novel, an opus with soap opera overtones, Simons uses a voice as flat as the Kansas prairie to relate the story of Natalie Makker, nicknamed Tully due to her brother's mispronunciation of her name. At times this voice is used to great effect. Tully's life is dramatic--her mother beats her brutally, her best friend commits suicide over a high school love, and as an under-age teenager she earns money by performing wantonly in dance contests--and a more enthusiastic narration could have made these incidents melodramatic. But the repetitious plot eventually grates. Tully finds herself having to choose between two men not once, but twice. She becomes pregnant while taking birth control pills twice as well, she habitually slits her wrists because she likes how it feels, and her mourning over the death of her teenage best friend Jennifer--a formerly autistic young woman who still counted compulsively--drags on well into adulthood. This is the weakest point in development of Tully's character, since Jennifer is only introduced as a depressed teenager and it is therefore difficult to understand why Tully would place this loss at the center of her existence. The Kansas setting is evocative in its emptiness, but there is also a certain hollowness at Tully's core that keeps her from human contact and staves off empathy; at one point she says of herself to a boyfriend: ``There is no center. There is only the outer edge. Inside is a black hole''--and that is all too easy to believe. An overload of angst and unnecessary length finally do this novel in. (First printing of 165,000; Book-of-the-Month Club/Quality Paperback Book Club selections; $150,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0312954212
• ISBN 13: 9780312954215
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 685