Rhonda the Rubber Woman

By Norma Peterson

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1579620035
• ISBN13: 9781579620035
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Permanent Pr Pub Co
• Length: 247 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.3" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

young heroine searches for authentic identity in fine novel

"Rhonda, the Rubber Woman" is an old-fashioned, quintessentially American novel. The protagonist, blue-collared and illegitimate, struggles against a stifling home life, social prejudices and economic privation and yearns to know her true self. Rhonda is as compelling as Huck Finn and as dynamic as Ellen Foster; the author, Norma Peterson, permits the narrative of the story to speak for itself. Rhonda cascades through a myriad of struggles and darkly humorous life choices, and Peterson permits her heroine to voice her misgivings, doubts and hopes with a voice that is at once forceful and fearful. Set in western Pennsylvania at the end of World War II, the novel features women on the cusp of feminist awareness but acutely aware of, and, at times uncomfortable with, their upcoming roles in post-war America. This engaging work, however, comes with its own sadness; the author died shortly before publication of this, her only novel. That Pererson's voice is stilled is a loss to American literature.Rhonda Sayers, by the time she will have turned sixteen, will have faced some of the most severe challenges a poor, frustrated and rebellious young woman could possibly face. Living with a simplistic mother, whose physical beauty only partly masks an incredible simplistic docility, Rhonda's nascent intellectualism compels her drive for independence. Wracked with guilt -- about not having a father, about not looking like a Sayers woman, about the evil thoughts she harbors about her mother -- Rhonda's internal conflicts compel her to seek to escape the suffocating life facing her. Ostracized by a rigidly conformist and repressive culture (Peterson brilliantly recreates the stigma attached to "bastard" children), Rhonda seeks refuge in words. She writes mordant poetry and memorizes pithy quotations she adroitly uses to extricate herself from uncomfortable situations. When her mother, recognized as the town [tramp], takes up with a club-footed carney named Eddie, Rhonda gains insight into the true deformity of her life. Eddie attempts to exploit Rhonda's natural physical flexibility by auditioning her as a sideshow "rubber woman." This abortive attempt only fuels Rhonda's need to become her own person; her appetite whetted by possibility, she leaves her small hometown for Philadelphia. The big city opens up new possibilities for her; Rhonda befriends bohemians, who ply her with existential quotations and amphetamines. Never at place with this set of "faster" friends, Rhonda accepts the advice of one friend and sets out to discover the identity of her father.Norma Peterson handles this quest with humor, insight and compassion. Allowing Rhonda's mother a moment of grace and the heroine the right to define who she will love and how she will express that love are some of the strongest moments of the novel. Readers who desire a glimpse of a young woman attempting to liberate herself at a time when such actions were uncommon will be richly rewar