Necessary Madness - Softcover

Crowell, Jenn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0997497505 ISBN 13: 9780997497502

Publisher: Carnelian Press, 2016

Synopsis

From the critically acclaimed author of Etched On Me comes a poignant, moving story of resilience and second chances. After nine short but blissful years of marriage, American expat Gloria Burgess's world shatters when her British artist husband dies of leukemia. Estranged from her mother, utterly alone in her adopted home of London, she must now struggle to raise her young son on her own -- and fight the temptation to sink into the self-absorption of grief that once drove her father to suicide. As she puts on a retrospective of her late husband's work, Gloria finds solace in the form of an empathetic friendship with a charming widower, and agrees to let her mother cross the Atlantic to stay with her for their first visit in a decade. The reunion could drive the wedge between them deeper ... or offer Gloria a priceless opportunity for regaining equilibrium and wholeness. Will she seize the opportunity, or turn her back on a new beginning?

About this title

Review:

Not that age should matter in the grand scheme of things, but Jenn Crowell was barely 18 when she sold this first novel to her publishers. Unlike much fiction by very young people, however, Necessary Madness does not trade on hipness, teenage angst or underage promiscuity. The novel is the story of 30-year-old Gloria Burgess coming to grips with the premature death from cancer of a beloved husband. Kirkus Reviews hailed Necessary Madness (set in England, though Crowell is American) for its fully developed characters and maturity of content.

From the Back Cover:

From her first poignant sentences, Jenn Crowell beckons the reader into Gloria Burgess's private world. After a scant eight years of marriage, Gloria's beloved husband succumbs to leukemia, leaving her alone with a son to bring up in an adopted country. The madness of grief is a constant, voracious temptation she must withstand, for her child's sake not her own. To accomplish this, Gloria delves into the lessons from the past and her parents' failed relationship. Her father was forever inconsolable over his dead first love, her mother bitter at giving up her ambitions for a man incapable of loving her. Between her father's clinging, drowning despair and her mother's emotional abandonment is a balance that Gloria struggles to find. And eventually she discovers ways to reinvent herself, to find happiness once again, and to bring peace back to the tumult of her life.

About this edition

• Publisher: Carnelian Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0997497505
• ISBN 13: 9780997497502
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216