Odd Woman - Softcover

Gail Godwin is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the bestselling author of twelve critically acclaimed novels, including A Mother and Two Daughters, Violet Clay, Father Melancholy’s Daughter, Evensong, The Good Husband, Queen of the Underworld, and Unfinished Desires. She is also the author of The Making of a Writer: Journals, 1961–1963 and The Making of a Writer, Volume 2: Journals, 1963–1969, edited by Rob Neufeld. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has written libretti for ten musical works with the composer Robert Starer. Gail Godwin lives in Woodstock, New York.

Jane is a thirty-two-year-old professor of English at a Midwestern university, aware of her "ever present problem of her unclear, undefined, unresolved self." She considers characters and authors from nineteenth-century novels as friends and converses with them, wondering how they might react, what they might choose, how they might define Jane in their novels. The death of her staunchly supportive grandmother, Edith, brings Jane home to bury this woman whose influence feels almost bigger than life. Edith, proper and always knowing, never seemed to consider the questions that constantly haunt Jane. Kitty, Edith's daughter and Jane's mother, who recently turned to God, has become "so serene, so distant." Even Gerta, Jane's "oldest" friend, now driven by feminist zeal, leaves Jane wondering if history is all they have in common. And Gabriel, Jane's married lover - what does he provide in her life, where is the truth in that relationship? Jane has thoughts that are "flying wildly abroad, knocking one another down, flinging themselves against impenetrable windows, barriers of other times, other places" - thoughts that demand her time and attention as she remembers Edith, talks with Kitty, confronts Gerta, and allows herself to be honest about Gabriel. Odd Woman is an introspective romp; it may make you want to re-read nineteen-century novels, review your own relationships, and reaffirm your own truths. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Holly Smith