Tell Me the Truth About Love
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- 10,99 €
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- 10,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
In this rich novel of family conflict and closely guarded secrets, Mary Cable explores dreams and fears that lie hidden deep within the human heart.
Alex Smithson, forty-two-years-old and living in Santa Fe, leads an under-demanding life made prickly only by her oppressive, aristocratic in-laws to whom Alex will never be entirely acceptable. The Smithsons have always treated Alex as an outsider, despite the fact that she has been married to the older of their two sons, Oz, for nearly twenty years. Putting up with their behavior, however, is a small price to pay in exchange for her comfortable world.
But Alex's life is about to change, for her in-laws have threatened to disinherit both of their sons.
Feeling vulnerable and unsure of her future, Alex is suddenly swamped with memories of earlier years of uncertainty and loss. The daughter of Foreign Service parents, Alex spent her childhood moving from one exotic location to another, learning new languages and customs but never quite feeling that she belonged. Then, following a searing love affair with disastrous consequences, Alex thought she had at last found security when she met reliable Oz Smithson.
Now, Alex finds herself at a crossroads. She wants to hold on to what is safe and familiar but faces the unknown. And before she can take risks, she must ask herself penetrating questions and make difficult choices.
Deftly addressing universal themes of love, family, and self-realization, Mary Cable gives us a warm, sympathetic story about how one woman comes to terms with her past and the future.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A worn plot and some thin characters are given fresh appeal by the coolly appraising voice of Cable's ( Avery's Knot ) ironic, detached narrator. A scandal is threatening Decatur and Lydia Smithson, patrician owners of the vast Gallegos Ranch in New Mexico. Their diletante son David (married to the impeccably correct Bishy) has instigated a lawsuit seeking to obtain custody of his parents on the grounds that they are habitual drunkards and therefore incompetent. What he really wants is their ranch, which the Smithsons have willed to a questionable religious sect. Lydia requests aid from the rest of her family but her plea only unleashes a flood of bitter and hostile memories from her other daughter-in-law Alex, who, as the child of low-ranking foreign service officers, was never considered suitable Smithson material. In a dispassionate voice Alex recalls her improbable affair with David 19 years earlier that resulted (unknown to David) in the birth of a son, subsequently given up for adoption. Now the teenager is heir to some enormously valuable property, and his appearance at the ranch, under pressure, forces some painful confrontations. A fine eye for detail and some elegantly drawn portraits save this story of a family in transition from becoming unbridled melodrama.