Other
Women by Lisa Alther
With
two young sons, a failed marriage, a job as an emergency room
nurse that leaves her feeling paralyzed and hopeless, and a
relationship with a woman that has entered its final stages,
thrity-five year-old Caroline Kelley is more than ready to change
her life. Dr. Hannah Burke has seen almost everything in her long
practice as a therapist -- and nothing Caroline can do or say can
shock her. But as the therapeutic relationship between the two
deepens and widens, Hannah finds old memories, desires, and
despairs stirring, demanding recognition and resolution. What
evolves and blossoms within these two women as they interact forms
the basis for a novel that is candid, comic, erotic, ironic,
unsparingly probing, and profoundly moving.
"Other
Women represents my attempt to come to terms with the violence in
our world, both personal and global, via my main character
Caroline Kelley, an emergency room nurse. In despair over the
horror she sees all around her, she goes into therapy. Her
interactions in that small room over several months challenge and
change both her and the therapist, an older woman who has shut
down emotionally in response to her own earlier experience of pain
and loss." -- Lisa Alther
"Alther's
genius as a novelist is her ability to capture and juxtapose the
odd combinations of personality, gender, class, culture, family
life and chance that shape human destinies.... Artfully
counterpointing the feelings of client and therapist, Alther
demonstrates the terror and comfort generated by the
psychotherapeutic process....Her analysis of the failure of
Caroline's relationship with her lover Diana is one of the most
original, poignant and refreshing passages I've read about a
lesbian relationship gone sour....Alther, like the fictional
character of Caroline, has grown and developed as a novelist. By
focusing her enormous energy and appetite on a single, subtle and
deep relationship, rather than creating a complex universe of
characters, she has produced an important and satisfying novel
about the human psyche." -- Jane Futcher, San Francisco
Chronicle
