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Synopsis
The rights of grandparents to visit their beloved grandson pit them against their remarried daughter-in-law. When Charlie and Molly's son dies, their daughter-in-law remarries and is vaulted into an upper class world of money and privilege. She is now determined to lead a new life and keep her son free from the blue-collar influences of her ex in-laws. Forced to sue for their right to visit their beloved grandson, Charlie and Molly enter a world of courtroom conflict that deeply affects everyone involved, including the trial judge. Each of the players in this remarkable drama must search their souls for the right decision, not for themselves, but in the best interest of the child whom they all deeply cherish. Topical and utterly devastating, this novel, originally a Reader's Digest book, delves deeply into the heart-rending dilemma of generational conflict.
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About the Author
Warren Adler is best known for The War of the Roses, his masterpiece fictionalization of a macabre divorce turned into the Golden Globe and BAFTA nominated dark comedy hit starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. In addition to the success of the stage adaptation of his iconic novel on the perils of divorce, Adler has optioned and sold film rights to more than a dozen of his novels and short stories to Hollywood and major television networks. Random Hearts (starring Harrison Ford and Kristen Scott Thomas), The Sunset Gang (starring Jerry Stiller, Uta Hagen, Harold Gould and Doris Roberts), Private Lies, Funny Boys, Madeline's Miracles, Trans-Siberian Express and his Fiona Fitzgerald mystery series are only a few titles that have forever left Adler's mark on contemporary American authorship from page to stage to screen. Learn more about Warren Adler at warrenadler.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
FRANCES watched him as he stood in the patch of garden in the sweltering night, squinting into the grate on which the steaks sizzled, intense and absorbed in his task. In the airconditioned cool of the den, she sipped the martini he had mixed with scrupulous care. It was strange and bitter to her taste. Music spilled softly from the speakers. Mozart, he had said. She whispered the name and continued to watch him.
He wore a blue blazer, light gray flannels, and a floppy polka dot bow tie, which, in Dundalk, would have certainly seemed eccentric. But in the environment of this townhouse in Columbia, it was, she supposed, perfectly appropriate.
The candles he had lit in the den cast a flickering orange glow on the books, some helter-skelter, some standing like soldiers, in the paneled bookcases. On the walls were paintings, real paintings, not just prints. Mostly, they were splotches of deep colors in strange shapes. Abstract art, he had called them, expressing the hope that she loved them. She did not give him cause to think otherwise. It was all very wonderful and mysterious and she felt transported into an environment totally different from any she had ever known.
She had, in a way, expected this first formal date to be exactly as it was turning out. No, there were no disappointments. In her life, that was most unusual.
"I know it's confusing."
Those were his very first words to her, soft and considerate, yet unmistakably authoritative. It was, after all, his department and she was hired merely as a temporary to check input forms for some computer program, of which she understood little. He did not know, of course, that she was mortified by her failure. Nor could he see the symptoms of her agitation, the sudden tightness in her stomach, the tremors in her knee joints, the dryness in the roof of her mouth.
Patiently, like some kindly teacher, he had re-explained the process, and by the time he looked up at her, showing dark brown eyes with yellow flecks, her symptoms had disappeared.
"I'm terribly sorry," she had whispered. She hadn't expected the apology to be as abject as it must have sounded. Apparently, though, it struck a chord of sympathy in him, and later in the day he had stopped by her desk, looking over her shoulder until she felt the symptoms begin again.
"Now you got it," he had told her. This time, the receding symptoms left anger in their wake. He is treating me like a child, she thought defensively. The way she sometimes treated Tray, her five-year-old, when he did something right after repeated failures.
"Thank you," she had replied, wondering if he caught the tinge of sarcasm. It frightened her to think so, and she turned to look up at him and flash him a quick smile. In that instant, she sensed that he had, in some strange way, photographed her with his mind. It was so unexpected and illogical and ill-timed that she tried to force herself to deny it. But that didn't stop her from thinking about it, and soon she simply dismissed it as a mirage.
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- PublisherSignet
- Publication date1986
- ISBN 10 0451154592
- ISBN 13 9780451154590
- BindingMass Market Paperback
- LanguageEnglish
- Rating
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