About this ebook
A captivating collection unveiling the intricacies of love, life, and legacy
These twelve stories, told from the viewpoint of young women in life’s mid-passage, explore the splendors and miseries of love, both carnal and spiritual, and cast back through sickness and health to the engraving experiences of childhood and forward to the rituals and release of death and its occasion for recall.
They tell us of a dutiful but not guiltless daughter faced with the wreckage a father has made of his life, of the pain of trying to steer steadily through a doomed affair with a dearly loved married man, and of the ironies attending the funeral of a priest uncle and the birthday of an aged mother.
From the outwardly unremarkable frame of a single day—on Fire Island or in New York—an entire life and an encompassment of humanity are movingly conveyed. Then, with inverted telescope, the most subjective of inner realms is explored—through a hospital stay, a sudden name change, or the surprising end of all those dreaded piano lessons.
Taken together, these stories are a far greater whole than the sum of their remarkable parts, an unforgettable exploration of the paradoxical toughness and vulnerability that define the mortal condition.
These twelve stories, told from the viewpoint of young women in life’s mid-passage, explore the splendors and miseries of love, both carnal and spiritual, and cast back through sickness and health to the engraving experiences of childhood and forward to the rituals and release of death and its occasion for recall.
They tell us of a dutiful but not guiltless daughter faced with the wreckage a father has made of his life, of the pain of trying to steer steadily through a doomed affair with a dearly loved married man, and of the ironies attending the funeral of a priest uncle and the birthday of an aged mother.
From the outwardly unremarkable frame of a single day—on Fire Island or in New York—an entire life and an encompassment of humanity are movingly conveyed. Then, with inverted telescope, the most subjective of inner realms is explored—through a hospital stay, a sudden name change, or the surprising end of all those dreaded piano lessons.
Taken together, these stories are a far greater whole than the sum of their remarkable parts, an unforgettable exploration of the paradoxical toughness and vulnerability that define the mortal condition.
About the author
Elizabeth Cullinan (Author)
Elizabeth Irene Cullinan (June 7, 1933–January 26, 2020) was an Irish–American writer who started her career as a typist at The New Yorker magazine, which published her stories from 1960 to 1981. She produced two short story collections, The Time of Adam and Yellow Roses, and two novels, House of Gold and A Change of Scene.
Angela Alaimo O'Donnell (Foreword By)
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell is a professor, writer, and poet at Fordham University and the Associate Director of Fordham’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Among her recent books are Flannery O’Connor: Fiction Fired by Faith and Andalusian Hours: Poems from the Porch of Flannery O’Connor.
Elizabeth Irene Cullinan (June 7, 1933–January 26, 2020) was an Irish–American writer who started her career as a typist at The New Yorker magazine, which published her stories from 1960 to 1981. She produced two short story collections, The Time of Adam and Yellow Roses, and two novels, House of Gold and A Change of Scene.
Angela Alaimo O'Donnell (Foreword By)
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell is a professor, writer, and poet at Fordham University and the Associate Director of Fordham’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Among her recent books are Flannery O’Connor: Fiction Fired by Faith and Andalusian Hours: Poems from the Porch of Flannery O’Connor.
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