Martha Quest (Children of Violence)

Intelligent, sensitive, and fiercely passionate, Martha Quest is a young woman living on a farm in Africa, feeling her way through the torments of adolescence and early womanhood. She is a romantic idealistic in revolt against the puritan snobbery of her parents, trying to live to the full with every nerve, emotion, and instinct laid bare to experience. For her, this is a time of solitary reading daydreams, dancing -- and the first disturbing encounters with sex. The first of Doris Lessing's timeless Children of Violence novels, Martha Quest is an endearing masterpiece.

Humor and intelligence characterize this first novel about a young genetic researcher in New York. Anne Montgomery's relationships and those of her friends and lovers transform themselves, regroup, revitalize like the DNA she studies. But this is more than a sexy, entertaining soap opera. Each recombination reflects on how people live these days, and how they try to sort out their emotional lives. The author combines scientists, would-be artists, single working women, young parents, and born-again Yuppies to create a gentle social satire in a manner similar to that of Margaret Drabble. But Klass's voice is her ownupbeat, unaffected, and wisely funny. Highly recommended. Laurie Spector Sullivan, Regis Coll. Archives, Weston, Mass.
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