Review: This is One Best Selling Classic You Don't Want to Miss
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 4, 2013
What is there to add after all the rave reviews that greeted this best selling classic when it came out in 1974 - traditionally published of course by one of the big all-time publishers,Simon and Shuster.Nothing except to say that it is still highly relevant and an extraordinary testimonial to the harrowing role model changes women went through after World War II - the baby boomer era! Three decades, each crucial in its own way, calling in the next with the usual give-and-take, push-and-pull, destroy-and-rebuild that characterizes all human relationships. For this is a fast-paced novel full of suspense! Because for a woman to move to the next role model as the forties folded into the fifties, sixties and ultimately seventies, didn't come without pain and doubt. Each major female character in this book impersonates one of the typical role models: the good wife of the 40s and 50s, the liberated and ambitious professional career woman of the 60s and 70s, and the young daughter who is poised between the two, suffers from an over-permissive education (that too was typical of the times!)and is uncertain about which way to go, what role model to follow. Because the novel ends on a question mark making you want to read the next book in the series.This is a highly polished novel, the work of a master wordsmith and it comes as no surprise that it should be considered a "classic". It is the work of an author who is a typical baby boomer, self-questioning, highly observant, and therefore able to deliver a full panoramic overview of those transformative times, as women moved from submission to their husbands to full liberation as equals. And losing some pieces on the way as Ruth Harris does not fail to note.Just to be clear on one aspect since the author is a baby boomer herself. This cannot be considered a Boomer Lit novel as such though it does portray the travails of boomer generation women as they approach adulthood, marry, divorce and start a career of their own. Thus, like many Boomer Lit novels, it does investigatge inter-generational relationships and issues. But it does not deal with what is central to Boomer Lit: how do you handle the so-called "third act in life". Instead, this book has at least one of the main characters focused on her own coming-of-age issues (the daughter, a young adult)and none of the other characters, though they are mature, are really dealing with "third act in life" issues. They are still in their forties/fifties, deeply involved in their "second act", trying to complete what they have started (or not managing to do it, as the case may be, one of the characters indeed does face a tragic ending).But this book proves one thing: that authors who were born in the boomer generation are able to express, perhaps like none other, the peculiar and unique aspects of what it meant to live through the mid-20th century upheavals of a society hit by rising expectations from people climbing out of their minority status, whether due to race, gender or sexual inclination. Ruth Harris will not disappoint. I highly recommend this book.