Newfangled: A Novel

by Debra Monroe

Book Overview

From award-winning writer Debra Monroe comes a funny and poignant story of a woman's quest to find a physical and emotional home. Maddie, a refugee from two marriages, wanders from place to place... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684819058
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

A kaleidescope - dazzling yet it never settles

The story of Maidie Bonasso's life resembles a kaleidescope - the imagery is hard-edged yet dazzling, and while the pictures change smoothly, the narrative never settles into one pattern. Maidie's life is a collection of memories saved from her constant moves, which leave behind estranged parents, remote sisters and two ex-husbands. Currently working in Tuscon as the curator of the Museum of Domestic History and Home Economy (which functions better as metaphor than as museum), Maidie begins to catalog her life : abandonment--by mother ; neglect--by first husband ; verbal abuse--by second husband ; happiness--with boyfirend--current. But although Maidie thinks often about her past, it isn't until the last third of the novel that she confronts the fragments of her life and visits her family. The book is a wry and honest look at the newfangled forms of family created by geographic dislocations and divorce, by the Flannery O'Connor award winning author of "The Sources of Trouble" and "A Wild Cold State".