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Strong Women
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14382 |
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BOOK WORLD
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6 / 1988 |
2,730 Words |
| Author
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Linda Osborne
Linda Osborne has taught contemporary literature at the
Smithsonian Institution and frequently reviews fiction. |
THE CAPE ANN
Faith Sullivan
New York: Crown Publishers, 1988
350 pp., $18.95
In Faith Sullivan's Minnesota, to paraphrase Garrison Keillor, all the women are strong, all the men good looking, and all the children are above average. Her heroines have an eccentric energy and independence that drive them to take control of their own lives, even when it means upsetting their ineffectual mates. Each of her four novels deals in some way with women forming their identities and coming to terms with their losses in love and marriage, but this theme grows more complex, with deeper implications for the characters, from first novel to last.
Sullivan's work represents an evolution in portraying feisty women, from the humorous, flaky housewife who confronts her colorful adolescence in Repent, Lanny Merkel, published in 1981, to Arlene, the spirited and resourceful mother in her new novel, The Cape Ann. Each successive woman character is more willing to take risks, defy convention, and suffer losses to arrive at a meaningful life for herself. Each novel is richer in texture and nuance than the one before, more subtle in characterization, and more reflective on the nature of love and the weight of sadness in family relationship. It is a pleasure to see a writer's work deepen as Sullivan's does, growing more complex in its exploration of the human heart and more sharply observant of the ways people make a place for themselves in the world.
The Cape Ann is certainly her most ambitious novel, revealing a troubled
... (1998 of 15958 Characters)
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