Love, Sin & Survival - Softcover

Carroll Ph.D., LaVon B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1888106948 ISBN 13: 9781888106947

Publisher: Agreka Tm Llc, 1999

Synopsis

This novel won First Place in Fiction in 1989--League of Utah Writers. Based On Real Life Events.

A woman of extraordinary beauty, thirty year-old Irene Kent fits comfortably into the role of wife and mother as defined by her culture. Suddenly widowed, she begins the painful journey of learning that her entire identity has been based on the love of a man. Struggling painfully with single life, she falls in love with a married man and her entire belief system is challenged.

Irene's daughter Ellen watches her mother struggle, and observes and evaluates the culture and lives of her family and fellow townspeople. She grows into young womanhood critically examining time-honored beliefs versus her deep desire to forge a different life for herself as a woman.

Mother-in-law to Irene and grandmother to Ellen, Addie Kent is a wise, kind, and strong widow, a woman of faith and endurance, her pioneer ethic still strong. She is the center of her families' lives.

About this title

About the Author

LaVon B. Carroll won many awards locally and nationally. She received her A.A. from Weber College, B.S. and M.A. from Utah State University, and Ph.D. from the University of Utah. She studied at the University of California at Berkeley, did Post-doctoral work at Oxford University in England, University College Dublin in Ireland, and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Mrs. Carroll taught Literature at Weber State for twenty-four years and retired in 1986.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Ed decided he'd better go back to the hotel for his tie and park the car there. It was only a couple of blocks to the dance hall and the walk would do him good. He was still not sure that he wanted to go dancing tonight, but the thought of spending the evening in that stuffy hotel room trying to untangle his snarled emotions filled him with despair. He could hear the noise from the pool hall but over and above it all, coaxing, sighing, offering balm to his troubled mind was music from the dance hall. By ten o'clock he found himself shoving the quarter through the mesh of the ticket office, and he lounged uncertainly into the foyer. There he leaned against the wall in the shadows, half-hypnotized by the gyrating figures.

It was a little while before his eyes becoming accustomed to the dim light that he saw her. She looked up into the eyes of Ed Barker who held out his hand to her.

Great, tragic love affairs don't begin in a crepe-paper decorated dance hall with a hoarse saxophone blurting "The Object of my affection can change my complexion from white to rosy red." They begin in great, polished ball rooms hung with glinting crystal chandeliers and a Viennese orchestra dressed in tuxedos playing Strauss waltzes. Everybody knows that from novels and the movies. Except Irene and Ed who moved into each other's arms as though the whole world had conspired to put them there.

Hours later as he walked her home under the deep blue sky filled with summer stars, listening to the rustle of a lazy night wind in the trees, the gurgle of irrigation ditches, the faint noises of cars speeding along the distant highway, they had begun to know the feelings of intense ecstasy and sorrow that come with late love and harsh obstacles a love which comes when the heart is finally mature enough to accept it, yet when patterns of life are so irrevocably set that it is all but impossible to change them. Ed knew that he ought to get in his Buick that very hour and drive Hell-bent for Salt Lake City and, in the future, find a route that would take him safely around Merritsville. Irene knew that she ought to close that little warped gate at her front yard between them and never think of him again.

They stood for a while on the front porch not saying much. Ed was so shaken by his feeling for her that he only took her very gently in his arms and pressed her close for a quick, dry kiss. "Can I see you again soon?" he whispered. She nodded, brushing her cheek against his shoulder. Pressing her hand, he leaped off the porch. "Next week, I'll try...."

Irene stood listening to his rapid footsteps retreating down the graveled path and sidewalk. Then she shivered violently from head to foot in spite of the fact that the night was still warm. She had never spent such a night in her life. When she went into the warm, dark little house, it seemed lonelier than it had been since Laurence's death. She did not turn on the lights, but undressed in the dark of her bedroom and lay down on the smooth clean sheet.

For a short while she felt very peaceful and drowsy, her body suffused with the pleasurable memory of Ed; she had almost dropped off to sleep when suddenly she was filled with such a flush of fever that she sat bolt upright and put both her hands to her face. In that twilight between sleeping and waking a shocking image had come to her mind of something so long forgotten that she winced with shame those last nights with Laurence.... It passed and she lay back down feeling very near tears. She was perspiring and the rayon garments which she never removed day or night stuck to her with a malignant tenacity. She plucked them away from her legs and breasts and turned and twisted. Her breasts and thighs throbbed and she became conscious of a swelling in her genitals. Perhaps she had come sick early. Wearily she got up, went out to the bathroom and discovered that she had not. It was only the viscous liquid of desire so long quenched.

She slipped off her garments and began to sponge herself with cold water, wiping vigorously between her legs. As she picked up the sacred garments to put them back on she was seized with a fit of shaking so that she could hardly get them on. Then she caught sight of herself in the dim tilted mirror above the wash basin. In spite of herself she saw how beautiful her naked body was. She was half tempted not to put the garments back on, but then panic swept over her. How could she be so wicked? Slowly, almost contritely, she drew the unshapely garments on but, as she buttoned them up, she could still see the warm, glowing pink flesh, the tips of her nipples, the firm, smooth curve of her belly, through the sheerness. The horror of it almost caused her to faint. She could not, she absolutely could not want another man. She had been betrothed, promised, sealed to Laurence and only to Laurence for time and eternity. Especially she could not want a man who was married.

Edition details

• Publisher: Agreka Tm Llc
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1888106948
• ISBN 13: 9781888106947
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 458