Description
From Publishers Weekly Originally published in 1980, National Book Award finalist Silber's first novel gives taut insight into the the possibilities of introspection for a woman of the Greatest Generation. Unsentimental Rhoda Taber lives in suburban New Jersey with her practical pharmacist-husband Leonard and, eventually, their two vastly different daughters, Suzanne and Claire. Silber (Ideas of Heaven) follows Rhoda from Suzanne's birth, in 1940, to late middle age, episodically exploring Rhoda's "unremitting force of character" and sometimes "startling hardness." Rhoda and Leonard socialize, do some low-level schmoozing, and mundanely move along through the '40s, until Leonard dies of heart attack at 42. As Rhoda struggles to reconfigure the Taber household, words, sometimes shouted, are frequently whispered. Mostly, though, the words and the feelings behind them, both good and bad, are left unsaid. That Rhoda comes, more and more, to articulate them for herself is what gives this book its particular shape, and imparts its palpable sense of growth.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "In this remarkable novel, Joan Silber pegs the confusion and complexity of an era, a place, a marriage, and, above all, motherhood as she brilliantly traces the arc of one woman's life. Deeply felt, funny, and profoundly resonant, Household Words is simply an extraordinary book, with a heroine as compelling and mysterious as Flaubert's Emma Bovary." ― Kate Walbert, author of She Was Like That "Examines an entire life with such shimmering detail that we sense the texture of the protagonists as deeply as we feel our own…A novel full of dignity and humanity." ― New York Times Book Review "A brave, wise, quite nearly heart-breaking book." ― Ms. "I began reading [ Household Words ] and then gave up everything else―work, meals, walks―until I was finished and I emerged into the sunlight, dazed." ― Mona Simpson, from the introduction Joan Silber is the author of eight works of fiction. Among many awards and honors, she has won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City. Read more
Features & Highlights
- Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award "Unqualified praise goes to this rarity: an extraordinary novel about ordinary people." ―
- Chicago Tribune
- The year is 1940, and Rhoda Taber is pregnant with her first child. Satisfied with her comfortable house in a New Jersey suburb and her reliable husband, Leonard, she expects that her life will be predictable and secure. Surprised by an untimely death, an unexpected illness, and the contrary natures of her two daughters, Rhoda finds that fate undermines her sense of entitlement and security. Shrewd, wry, and sometimes bitter, Rhoda reveals herself to be a wonderfully flawed and achingly real woman caught up in the unexpectedness of her own life.
