The Women Who Walk - Hardcover

Packer, Nancy Huddleston

3.78

9 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807114588 ISBN 13: 9780807114582

Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr, 1989

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Ten stories deal with the ambiguity of human motivation, two estranged sisters, a reunion of lovers, and unresolved tensions in personal relationships

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From Publishers Weekly:

"I did a deed that can be excused only by the brevity of its effect. I married a pleasant, innocent man who drank one drink after dinner on social occasions, and to whom every nuance had to be explained." So confides the narrator to her former fiance in "One Man's Poison," perhaps the strongest story in this accomplished collection. Visiting him, a Southern expatriate in New York, Lucy is reminded of the force and failure of their old love; the power of the memory tests her self-control; and she strikes a new and delicate balance between the exercise of social imperative and the potential violence of emotion. In other stories, characters from housewives to children step, like Lucy, to the brink of losing everything--and some do lose it, feeling a "pain that was like lust, like fear, like hatred" and requiring "the release" provided only by "torment." Packard's faithfulness to her characters, coupled with a resilient sense of humor, prevents tales of everyday woe from becoming tearjerkers. In the hands of this realist, life rewards wise fools, and Packer rewards readers.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

A major theme that threads through Packer's stories like a fugue and variation is the consequences of divorce. Packer's divorcees feel inadequate, as if they have failed a test; they can hardly contain their anger at being cast off. Thus, in the title story, a divorced woman becomes aware of "the women who walk the deserted streets," unnoticeable and on the fringe of society--as she feels herself to be now. Another theme is the pure revenge fantasy of the jilted when later meeting the jilter. Thus, in "Making Amends," a woman meets an old lover. She is successful, poised, still beautiful. When he admits his desire to begin again, she has the ultimate satisfaction of walking out on him. Throughout the collection Packer demonstrates a talent for the telling detail, the anger beneath the anguish.
- Marcia Tager, Tenafly, N.J.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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