Night Shift - Softcover

Wolff, Maritta

3.83

77 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1416521968 ISBN 13: 9781416521969

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK, 2006

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Sally Otis works as a waitress in order to support her three children and a jobless younger sister. They live in a down-trodden apartment house, which they share with other working class tenants. Her husband is in a State mental hospital and most likely there for good. Her deadbeat younger brother and a lodger from across the hall pay board to eat in her crowded little flat. As Christmas approaches, there is no money for gifts and no prospect of her husband returning home. As her burden becomes intolerable, Sally's sturdy courage begins to falter. To make matters worse, the sleazy, suspicious owner of the local night club - Nick Toresca - takes a fancy to Sally and won't leave her alone. As he is the brother of her boss at the greasy spoon, she is in no position to call the shots. Things are shaken up when Sally's sister - the swaggering, glamorous, independent Petey Braun - appears on the scene. All loud laugh, deep voice, self-confident aplomb and worldly generosity, Petey grabs the spotlight and centre of the stage and never lets them go. She is an American career woman - one who makes a career of men: she is a master of her trade. To give Sally a break, Petey sets about to dazzle Nick so that he has no eyes for Sally. Nothing is straightforward when Petey gets involved, however, so what follows is a swift-paced tale of tension, excitement and sibling rivalry as the very different worlds of Sally and Petey collide . . .

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

"Touching and horrible, sentimental and brutal all at the same time . . . It's good." -- The New York Times

"Night Shift is a solid and impressive novel, engrossing and continuously entertaining, bursting with the sounds and smells, drama and emotion of American life in a small Michigan factory city." -- Orville Prescott, The New York Times

"With Night Shift [Wolff ] promises to become a major novelist, an important and exciting one." -- Sinclair Lewis

"A realistic photographer and . . . narrator of tense, violent action . . . I think you'd better keep an eye on Miss Wolff." -- Clifton Fadiman, The New Yorker

About the Author:

Maritta Martin Wolff was born on December 25, 1918 in Grass Lake, Michigan. In 1941 she graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English composition, and that same year, at age 22, her Avery Hopwood Award-winning novel WHISTLE STOP was published by Random House. Between 1941 and 1962 Wolff wrote and published five more novels. Maritta Wolff died July 1, 2002, of lung cancer at home in West Lost Angeles.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.