By the Book - Hardcover

Malone, Susan M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1880909006 ISBN 13: 9781880909003

Publisher: Baskerville Pub, 1993

Synopsis

Nettie Rhodes, a conservative and religious young woman, is beaten by her husband for reading, leading her to question both her own and her husband's values

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

This painfully detailed first novel limns the psyche of a Fort Worth housewife in her late 30s whose loutish, manipulative husband subjects her to physical and emotional abuse in the name of Jesus Christ and "family values." Childless, jobless and pathetically dependent on her husband Roger, Nettie Rhodes has little contact with the world outside her immaculately tended home other than weekly visits with her feminist, "heathen" sister Becca and nieces Sara and Jeannie. The author fails to make convincing Nettie's abject submission to Roger, an obvious alcoholic who engages in extramarital affairs, is obsessed with sadistic pornography, beats his wife mercilessly and never attends church, although he insists that she do so. The story becomes somewhat more believable when a family tragedy forces Nettie to change her life and two elderly aunts help her understand how she has been an accessory to her victimization. But the book never really recovers from its early portrayal of a grim existence that doesn't quite ring true.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Malone's first novel tells the story of Nettie Rhodes, a housewife who is abused by her husband and subjugated into submission by her religion. Her only friend is her sister, a liberated member of NOW. By listening to her sister, Nettie undergoes a gradual transformation from a timid housewife into a self-aware, enlightened individual. Her story is interesting, but, unfortunately, not quite believable. After 17 years telling her how to clean the house and beating her for imagined slights, her husband hardly says a word when she finally leaves him. In addition, Nettie makes this transformation from a shadow to a real person without seeming to realize it. It may be that life does change in this way--so gradually that monumental changes are unnoticed--but the reader is left wishing for characters who are more thoughtful. Reasonably entertaining but not an essential purchase.
- Kathy Armendt Sorci, IIT Research Inst., Annapolis, Md.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Baskerville Pub
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 1880909006
• ISBN 13: 9781880909003
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 247