Secret Language: A Novel (Inscribed & Signed By Author)

Wood, Monica

ISBN 10: 057112948X / ISBN 13: 9780571129485

Published by Faber and Faber, Boston, London, 1993

About this Item

INSCRIBED & SIGNED BY AUTHOR. Inscription appears on title page. A nice copy with minor wear. 253 pages.

Seller Inventory # 053605

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Secret Language: A Novel (Inscribed & Signed By Author)
• Publisher: Faber and Faber, Boston, London
• Publication Date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 057112948X
• ISBN 13: 9780571129485
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Signed: INSCRIBED & SIGNED BY AUTHOR
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • General

About this title

Synopsis

At the heart of Secret Language are two sisters, Faith and Constance. Dragged around the country with their parents - egocentric, semi-famous actors who can scarcely take care of themselves - young Faith and Connie learn to rely exclusively on each other.
With years of unspoken closeness behind them, the adult sisters are beginning to drift apart when Isadora, the half-sister they never knew existed, makes her dramatic entrance into their lives. For Connie, Isadora offers a chance to expand her family; Faith, suspicious of Isadora's motives, shrinks from her demanding presence.
But a crisis unexpectedly forces Faith and Connie into their long-forgotten childhood habits, and they begin a slow journey back to each other, blending past and present in a way that compels them to include the other people in their lives.
Secret Language is a first novel of unusual grace and maturity. In it, Monica Wood explores ways of being a family, and of being in a family.

Reviews

Wood's debut novel is a fiercely lyrical study of two sisters, inseparable yet emotionally distant in childhood, who against all odds grow close as adults. Faith and Connie Spaulding move from city to city with their parents, Billy and Delle, self-centered and unloving actors who quarrel violently. The thespian duo die due to carelessness and alcohol abuse while the girls are in their teens. After Faith becomes a medical secretary in Maine and marries Joe, a machinist, and Connie becomes a flight attendant, the sisters drift apart. Wood's portrayal of Faith, who feels "caught in the wrong life"--her husband's love hard for her to accept, her two sons mysteries to her--is especially affecting. When Isadora, a half-sister from Brooklyn whom Faith and Connie never knew existed, suddenly barges into their lives, Connie eagerly embraces her. An aspiring blues singer, Isadora turns out to be a shameless publicity-seeker. But her intrusion, a divorce and a tragic accident will reunite Faith and Connie. Wood, whose fiction has appeared in Redbook and other publications, writes with sensitivity and intuitive insight about relationships coming apart and the walls people erect to keep others out.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.