The Widow's Children

On the eve of their trip to Africa, Laura Maldonada Clapper and her husband, Desmond, sit in a New York City hotel room, drinking scotch-and-sodas and awaiting the arrival of three friends: Clara Hansen, Laura's timid, brow-beaten daughter from a previous marriage; Carlos, Laura's flamboyant and charming brother; and Peter Rice, a melancholy editor whom Laura hasn't seen for over a year. But what begins as a bon voyage party soon parlays into a bitter, claustrophobic clash of family resentment. From the hotel room to the tony restaurant to which the five embark, Laura presides over the escalating innuendo and hostility with imperial cruelty, for she is hiding the knowledge that her mother, the family matriarch, has died of a heart attack that morning. A novel as intense as it is unerringly observed, The Widow's Children is another revelation of the storyteller's art from the incomparable Paula Fox.

Author: Paula Fox
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 10/17/1999
Pages: 238
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.48lbs
Size: 8.24h x 5.53w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780393319637

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 11/28/1999 pg. 32
Ingram Advance 10/01/1999 pg. 135
New York Review of Books 04/25/2002 pg. 47
New Yorker (The) 05/16/2011 pg. 120

About the Author
Fox, Paula: - Paula Fox (1923--2017) was the author of Desperate Characters, The Widow's Children, A Servant's Tale, The God of Nightmares, Poor George, The Western Coast, and Borrowed Finery: A Memoir, among other books.Barrett, Andrea: - Andrea Barrett is the author of the National Book Award-winning Ship Fever and the Pulitzer Prize finalist Servants of the Map, among other works of fiction. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Award, she lives in the Adirondacks.