The Love Children
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A girl comes of age in the radical 1960s in this “beautifully written” novel by the groundbreaking author of The Women’s Room (Kate Mosse).
It’s 1968 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jess Leighton, the daughter of a temperamental painter and a proto-feminist Harvard professor, is struggling to make sense of her world amid racial tensions, Vietnam War protests, anti-government rage, her own burgeoning sexuality, and bad relationships. With more options than her mother’s generation, but no role model for creating the life she desires, Jess experiments with sex and psychedelic drugs as she searches for happiness on her own terms.
In the midst of joining and fleeing a commune, growing organic vegetables, and operating a sustainable restaurant, Jess grapples with the legacy of her mother’s generation while building a future for herself, and for the postmodern woman. “French’s meticulous and affecting tale of the forging of one woman’s conscience encompasses thoughtful portraits of ‘love children,’ from peace activists to members of unconventional families, and a forthright critique of the counterculture that puts today’s wars, struggles for equality, and environmental troubles into sharp perspective” (Booklist).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Marilyn French's The Women's Room, published in 1977, spoke to a generation. In this final novel, published posthumously, French uses the social unrest of the late 1960s as the seedbed for modern dissatisfaction. Jess Leighton navigates her parents' divorce, the Vietnam War, racism and her burgeoning sexuality with difficulty. She plunges into sex, drugs, bad relationships and life on a commune growing organic vegetables, something she had never imagined back in high school in Cambridge, Mass. A novel that feels like a memoir, there are many beautiful passages and poignant moments, but French tries to cover too much and tells more than she shows. When she pulls back the curtain on specific, life-changing moments in Jess's life, the writing is strong and the investment in the characters deep, which makes the weaker sections all the more frustrating. French's disciples will laud this as a life-affirming work; her critics will dismiss it; but it's too complex and nuanced a novel to be banished into either camp.
