Violet Clay had come to New York City from Charleston to take the art world by storm. But nine years, many affairs, and thousands of drinks later, the reality of her shadow life is made clear when she is fired from her job as a freelance illustrator. That same day, she hears that her beloved Uncle Ambrose, an unsuccessful writer, has shot himself. As Violet collects the shattered pieces of her uncle's life, she is forced to face herself and her own tattered dreams. And what she discovers is that she has just been going through the motions of living. She's not even sure she can do anything else. But she's in her mid-thirties and knows she still has time to try again. If she succeeds, she will have broken from her family of dreamers forever and can deservedly claim both the rich rewards and frustrating adversities of the artist's life....

Violet Clay (Contemporary American Fiction)

Literature & Fiction

GODWIN, Gail

Literary

Penguin??Books

The Odd Woman

"HER BEST BOOK SO FAR....[It is] one of the most literate, intelligent and powerful novels I have ever read." --Eugenia Thornton The Cleveland Plain Dealer Professor Jane Clifford is in her early thirties, smart, and attractive. A popular teacher at a midwestern college, she appears to be going somewhere. But Jane knows better. After a lifetime habit of looking to books for the answers to life's mysteries, she seems to be finding only more questions. Then her beloved grandmother suddenly dies, and Jane returns home for the funeral, where she is faced with the little dramas and fictions of both the past she has lived and the past she has only been told about. In the midst of it all, she is considering breaking off a long-term, long-distance affair, but like the family stories she tries to make sense of, she cannot seem to find a reason to claim a life of her own.... "PROVOCATIVE...The Odd Woman is an ambitious and intricately developed novel....One of the most realistic, intelligent and skillful character studies of a contemporary woman to date....Godwin is an extraordinarily good writer....She is a shrewd observer of human sensibilities and shortcomings--particularly those of women--and she explores them in depth with sensitivity, wit and an uncanny eye for the truth." --Chicago Sun-Times "EXCITING AND AFFIRMATIVE...It is a privilege to watch the unfolding of her impressive talent." --Minneapolis Tribune

"POWERFUL. . .GODWIN IS BRILLIANT. . .DEFTLY PLOTTED AND IMAGINED. . . [It] deepened my long-cherished belief about certain forms of art: that in exploring extremities of human behavior, in forcing us to wade through real or metaphorical blood, such art saves us from these experiences and is cathartic in the best sense of the term."--Joyce Carol OatesThe Washington PostFrancesca married her husband Cameron, an ambitious Los Angeles district attorney, because he asked. Beautiful and pampered, she has never worked and has never wanted to. She lives only to appreciate the finer things and to be adored. But after four years of marriage, she finds herself unable to move, to dress in the morning, or to take the elevator outside.Lately, she finds her days drifting by in a haze. She'd like to leave Cameron, but the effort seems too great. Instead, she visits her mother, once her closest confidante, now indifferent and distant. As Francesca prays for rescue, change makes a surprise appearance, and suddenly she is faced with the choice between an awkward life and a slow, comfortable death. . . ."Deceptively subtle: it would be easy to skim right over all the deep things the author is saying and read her book as a well-written surface story of a beautiful woman who makes an abortive bid for freedom....I have been crying out for contemporary woman's new consciousness to express or define itself in a good novel....Here it is: Glass People by Gail Godwin."--Anatole Broyard The New York Times

Glass People

Penguin

On vacation in Majorca with John, her husband, and Robin, his illegitimate son, Dane begins to see their marriage in a completely new light

The Perfectionists (Contemporary American Fiction)

The perfectionists

CAPE.

Privately printed, and personally signed by the author, for members of The Signed First Edition Society. Bound in purple composition leather decorated in gilt. Five raised bands on the spine. All edges gilt. Marbled end papers.

Father Melancholys Daughter

Daedalus Books Inc Remainders

"A big, entertaining novel...Rich in character and place and humanity...Gail Godwin is a wonderful writer."THE BOSTON GLOBEAt the death of Leonard Strickland, beloved Southern gentleman, husband and father, his family is faced with the unknown. Nell always relied on the husband of her youth for security and friendship. Fiercely independent Cate and perfect Lydia have spent their lives vying for the love and approval their father generously gave. And as each woman begins to view her life, her past, and the possibilities of the future with new eyes, each belatedly discovers that life and death are impossible to plan, and that the past that has kept them apart can bring them closer to themselves and one another....

A Mother & Two Daughters

British & Irish

Avon/Books

As a young woman, brilliant, charismatic, and curious, Marsha Danziger transformed herself into Magda Danvers, taking the academic world by storm. She was already a star when she came upon Francis Lake in a midwestern seminary and married him. It was a mating that seemed perfect. But now Magda's grave illness puts their marriage to its ultimate test. Into this turmoil comes Alice Henry, an old friend whose own marriage is crumbling. Can Magda teach Alice the secret of the good marriage . . . and does she even know the secret any longer herself?

The Good Husband

Ballantine Books

To read Gail Godwin is to touch the very core of human experience. With inimitable grace and aching emotional precision, this New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award nominee probes our own complexities in characters whose lives oscillate between success and struggle, stoic resolve and quixotic temptation, bitter disappointment and small, sacred joy. Now, in her first novel since The Good Husband, Godwin again translates our everyday existence into soul-touching truths as she brings to brilliantly realized life the people of a small Smoky Mountain town--and a woman whose world is indelibly altered by them. At the advent of the new millennium, the residents of High Balsam are in desperate need of hope. Economic and social unrest has led to tragedy. For Margaret Bonner, the young pastor of High Balsam's Episcopal church, care of the community is her constant challenge and devotion. But now, into Margaret's well-ordered life, come three strangers--a firebrand female evangelist with a haunted past; an elderly, itinerant man whose visit to this quiet hamlet may be no accident; and a troubled boy who Margaret's husband, headmaster of a progressive, local school, is determined to save. Soon these explosive personalities will ignite a conflagration in Margaret's marriage and in the depths of her very soul. Raising profound issues of love, commitment, and the ever-changing landscape of family, Evensong is both graceful and gripping in its story of a marriage struggling to sustain the best of itself in a volatile world. With this engrossing new novel, one of our most gifted and accomplished storytellers gives us an unforgettable portrait of an American town at the century's end--and of the unexpected events that forever shape our lives.

Evensong

"A big, entertaining novel...Rich in character and place and humanity...Gail Godwin is a wonderful writer." THE BOSTON GLOBE At the death of Leonard Strickland, beloved Southern gentleman, husband and father, his family is faced with the unknown. Nell always relied on the husband of her youth for security and friendship. Fiercely independent Cate and perfect Lydia have spent their lives vying for the love and approval their father generously gave. And as each woman begins to view her life, her past, and the possibilities of the future with new eyes, each belatedly discovers that life and death are impossible to plan, and that the past that has kept them apart can bring them closer to themselves and one another....

Mother and Two Daughters: A Novel

Random House Publishing Group

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Books by GODWIN, Gail