| The Cage Susan Cheever s third novel is about marriage, the destructive power of jealousy, and the sense of a lost past which haunts contemporary life. The localcs are New Yurk City, where wil- liam Bristol is a magazine writer, the nearby suburb where he lives with his wife, Italia, and the estate in New Hampshire that the couple have inher- ited from Julia s wealthy father. Alone together during the summer in New Hampshire, the two of them, m their late lorries, are finally forced to confront the breakdown of their once sharcd hopes. Julia resents her husband s work and her own increasing isolation m the suburbs. Bristol self-righteously busies himself with repairs on the cages Julia s flamboyant tathcr built for his private menagerie. It is in the elaborate, abandoned elephant cage that Bristol finds himself trapped as the nuvel moves reward its startling climax. Deftly mixing narrative tension with symbolic undercurrents, Susan Cheever has written a resonant new novel of con- temporary love and disillusionment. Her poignant and piercing language, her sure feel for the .personal straggles of modern life, delnonstrate the maturing power of her literary talent. |
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