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Fiction. Literature. HTML: "Thrilling"* with an ingenious structure, Strange Fits of Passion powerful portrait of truth, deception, and a troubled marriage from acclaimed novelist Anita Shreve. *The New Yorker Everyone believes that Maureen and Harrold English, two successful New York City journalists, have a happy, stable marriage. It's the early '70s, and no one discusses or even suspects domestic abuse. But after Maureen suffers another brutal beating, she flees with her infant daughter to a coastal town in Maine. The weeks pass slowly, and just as Maureen settles into her new life and new identity, Harrold reappears, bringing the story to a violent, unforgettable climax. Nearly nineteen years later, a cache of documents regarding Maureen English is given to her daughter by a journalist. The truth should lie within them, but the papers raise far more questions than they answer....… (more)
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One of Anita Shreve's best.
Shreve has chosen to approach it via the stories of multiple people involved, including the writer whose cover story in a major magazine may have influenced the eventual
And underlying the whole thing is a level of discomfort with the actions of the victim. The reader must keep reminding him/herself that the story, set in 1971, far predates the infamous "burning bed" incident of 1977 in which a long-abused woman killed her sleeping husband, and the 1978 Rideout case in Oregon, which led to legal recognition of marital rape and established it as a crime. Even given the era's lack of acknowledgement of the widespread nature of domestic abuse and the lack of legal/social support available for victims, it's difficult to understand many of the main character's actions.
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813 |