She Wanted Something Else - Hardcover

Megan Staffel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865472939 ISBN 13: 9780865472938

Publisher: North Point Press, 1987

Synopsis

A first novel of uncommon delicacy and sureness, SHE WANTED SOMETHING ELSE is the story of three connected lives and the delicate shifts, hesitations, and redirections that alter, threaten, and renew the characters' relationships over time. Foremost is Rose Ann, a dedicated painter who never does quite what is expected of her--or even what she expects of herself. Imperious and stubborn, she is caught between the demands of her family and those of her life as an artist. Told from the points of view of each of the three characters--Rose Ann, her husband, Teddy, and her daughter, Alma--SHE WANTED SOMETHING ELSE traces Rose Ann's struggle to be artist and wife and mother. It is the story of three imperfectly suited people and the emotional force that binds their lives together.

About this title

About the Author

Megan Staffel is the author of two novels and two collections of stories. She lives with her husband on an old dairy farm in a small town in western New York and has two adult children.

From Publishers Weekly

Hope springs high for this first novel when its protagonist, Rose Ann, dares at age seven to release the bar of her roller coaster cab, stand up and wave at her parents waiting stolidly below. There are other suspense-engendering acts of daring, but nothing comes of them; like the existence of two younger siblings, of an improbably tight-lipped mother and an art teacher with the astonishing name of London Quip, they are items in an excruciatingly long laundry list. Determined to live as an artistconveyed by scenes in which she arranges lemons in a bowl, or drapes a nude with scarves and feathersRose Ann reluctantly marries one Teddy Juroe and produces a daughter, Alma, to whom the second half of the book is devoted. When Alma is 14, Rose Ann traipses off to Italy on a painting fellowship, leaving her daughter space to show her own mettle and her husband to traffic in adultery. Since few of the characters are humanly recognizable, and since a number of them appear for a chapter or two and then are mercilessly dropped, the reader cares little what happens to them and has difficulty believing that they exist at all.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: North Point Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0865472939
• ISBN 13: 9780865472938
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320