Milwaukee - Softcover

Rubens, Bernice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349113726 ISBN 13: 9780349113722

Publisher: Abacus, 2002

Synopsis

Resting in a hospice for the terminally ill, Annie is dying. Supported by her oldest friend, Clemmie, who listens and sympathises, she looks back over her life. Each woman has had a disappointing marriage: Clemmie to a man who turned out to be gay; Annie to a man who left her under tragic circumstances. Gradually Annie reveals her story.

At 18 a GI whom she never sees again impregnates her in the back of a truck. Living alone with her mother, she brings up her daughter to believe the child's father is a dead war hero. After a few years Annie marries Eric, a charming man. However when Mary, her daughter, discovers the truth she is horrified and goes to the US - to Milwaukee - to try and locate her genuine father. She returns with a man who claims to be him, but Annie is highly suspicious. Is Mary trying to get her revenge on the mother - and subsequently Eric - whom she feels betrayed her by lying about her true parentage?

About this title

Review

[A] beautifully constructed, tender novel (DAILY MAIL)

[Bernice Rubens's] opening pages ... have all the virtues - directness, economy, vividness, tension - of a short story by Maupassant or Maugham (DAILY TELEGRAPH)

Brilliantly written, compulsively readable (S. EXPRESS *'Bernice Rubens is at her shrewd and chilling best . moving and memorable')

TLS ('A book that, in so short a space, conveys so much, with unremitting power pathos and understanding.')

From the Publisher

REVIEWS FROM THE PRESS
‘[A] beautifully constructed, tender novel’ DAILY MAIL

‘The story exerts a fierce grip and is likely to be read at one sitting’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘[Bernice Rubens’s] opening pages ... have all the virtues – directness, economy, vividness, tension – of a short story by Maupassant or Maugham ... A book that, in so short a space, conveys so much, with unremitting power, pathos and understanding’ DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘Brilliantly written, compulsively readable and reveals some real truths about the sadder and darker side of life ... Milwaukee is the latest contribution to a massively successful literary career’ SUNDAY EXPRESS

‘Bernice Rubens is at her shrewd and chilling best ... moving and memorable’ TLS

‘Rubens is as inventive as ever ... MILWAUKEE, like all of Rubens’s work (she has both won and been runner-up for the Booker Prize), is a very good read.’ LITERARY REVIEW

‘A gripping story that’s nastily and lovingly human, sometimes melodramatic, often mercifully farcical ... MILWAUKEE is a book written in a prose which is all clarity and wit, narrated in a voice which pulls no punches ... deeply moving’ SCOTSMAN

‘An unputdownable race between understanding/forgiveness on one hand, and dwindling time on the other ... The ostensible simplicity of her story-telling is subtly powerful ... Not many books cry out for an immediate second reading. Milwaukee does’ IRISH INDEPENDENT

About this edition

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0349113726
• ISBN 13: 9780349113722
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208