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The Madness of a Seduced
Woman is a triumph for Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, an author who has been
acclaimed as a modern master of the psychic landscape, able to bring to life
conflicts of mind and body, personal choice versus biological determination,
emotions and intellect. |
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In this evocative, often chilling
portrait of a woman obsessed by love, seduced by a lover, and driven by betrayal
to an act of murder, Schaeffer takes the reader back to turn-of-the-century
Vermont and into the mind of Agnes Dempster. Through Agnes' dreams, thoughts
and actions, Schaeffer weaves an intricate and vibrant tale that explores
the awesome complexity of the human condition...and achieves a passionate
evocation of a woman's psyche and the healing and destroying powers of
love.
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"Complex and satisfying--and absorbing, wonderfully inventive
psychological tale."
The New York Times Book Review
"Impossible to put down...a richly textured, engrossing narrative."
Publisher's Weekly
"Stunning--an American cousin for Hardy's TESS."
USA Today "A remarkable book...a riveting and intricate and altogether
astonishing novel."
Alice Walker
"Literature of the first magnitude...Schaeffer has awesome imaginative and
inventive powers."
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Original and deeply serious...a number of issues especially pertinent to
our time shape the course of the narrative."
Chicago Tribune Book World
"For those who hunger for the fiction of extreme emotion...a woman imagined
as we would never dare."
The New York Times Book Review
"A breathtakingly detailed study of a tortured mind...a compelling psychological
thriller that is not only astonishing, but believable."
Kansas City Star
"An exquisitely visual book...whose words and images stay in the mind...lovely,
moving, seamless."
Houston Chronicle
"No contemporary author can write more vividly nd more powerfully about the
obsessive passion of a young woman."
Marge Piercy
A passionate book, the story is tragic, the writing powerful, the details
fascinating."
West Coast Review of Books
"Serious, honest, intelligent...at the heart of the novel beats the fibrillating
pulse of obsession."
The Nation
"A brilliant work of fiction...plunges into the depths and scales the dizzying
heights of a turn-of-the century woman entrapped by her past but obsessed
with her future."
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"Intelligent fiction throughout...flaring with Schaeffer's richly cumulative
prose, her subtly resonating images...and occasionally disturbing
insights."
Kirkus Reviews
"Schaeffer's art is so astonishingly poised that, reading, one imagines it
is not written, but breathed...the moving inwardness of her characters pervades
the heart's abyss."
Cynthia Ozick |
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