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 My
Sister's Hand in Mine : The Collected Works of Jane Bowles
by
Jane Bowles
"While the entire
collection is notable, I have to say that "Two Serious
Women" seems to me to be the real masterpiece here. I read it
ten or so years ago for the first time and liked it but found it
rather dark. I re-read it a few years ago and liked it much more
than I had the first time, finding it hillarious, albeit darkly. I
was happily surprised all over again by the unpredictable behavior
of the characters. Unlike many novels, this one is almost
immediately engaging, with its portrait of the young Christina
Goering's religion-obsessed childhood games. Jane Bowles is often
lumped in with her husband; but her writing, though less
voluminous, is more unique, more inventive. This is writing well
worth repeated reading." -- Anonymous Review
"Jane
Bowles' prose is strange and beautiful. It's never quite clear why
her characters act the way they do, but they leave such haunting
impressions that her novel and stories beg to be read a second
time. My Sister's Hand in Mine is a great companion piece to Paul
Bowles' The Sheltering Sky, which shares the split cold/emotional
nature of Jane's work, and also themes of Americans abroad. Jane's
novel Two Serious Ladies, which opens this collection, is a
stunner. A wonderful writer; I wish she'd written more."
-- Anonymous Review
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In memory of Paul Bowles, American writer and composer, who died on November 18, 1999, in Tangier, Morocco, and of Jane Bowles, who died on May 3, 1973, in Màlaga, Spain. The official Paul Bowles and Jane Bowles Web site was authorized and established by Paul Bowles' literary and musical heirs and friends, with a biography of Paul Bowles, information on his novels, books, short stories, translations, music, scores, documentaries and films, audio clips, memoirs, interviews, galleries of photographs, biography of Jane Bowles and her literary works, and recommended resources and links.
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Excerpt:
Jane Auer was born in New York City on February
22, 1917 and raised mostly on Long Island. At twenty-one, she
married Manhattanite Paul
Bowles. After the civil ceremony, they took off for Panama.
According to Paul Bowles' autobiography Without
Stopping, Jane Bowles saw enough in Panama in ten days to
enable her to use it as a locale for her first novel, Two
Serious Ladies, which was published in 1943. From 1947,
she lived abroad, mostly in Tangier,
with her husband, writer and composer Paul
Bowles.
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