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Description edit
A turbulent, tragic story of domestic abuse from the bestselling author of The Pilot's Wife. 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.... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters edit
- Caroline: Daughter to Harrold and Maureen
- Harrold English: Husband to Maureen
- Jack Strout: Lobsterman
- Willis Beale: Lobsterman/antagonist
- Julia Strout: Inn keeper
- Mary Amesbury: Maureen English/alias
- Mrs. English: Maureen
- Everett Shedd: Store owner of St-Hilaire
- Rebecca Strout: Jack Strout's wife
- Jeannine: Boat name
- Maureen: Main character, mother to Caroline, wife to Harrold
- Judge Joseph Geary: Add a description of this character.
- D. W. Pickering
- Muriel Noyes
- Emily
- Sam Cotton: Defending attorney
- Billy Strout
- Mark Stein: Head of reporting magazine/newspaper
- André LeBlanc
- Elna Coffin
- Philip
- Colin
- Robert
- John
- Jeffrey Kaplan
Quotes edit
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“Once you tell your first lie, the first time you lie for him, you are in it with him, and then you are lost.”
Caroline -
“He had to get her back. He had to make her like him again, or his entire world would fall apart.”
Harold -
“It had been silly to mop floors. wash tables, as if I could scrub away the past.”
Caroline
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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Once you tell your first lie, the first time you lie for him, you are in it with him, and then you are lost.
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It is a fallacy that anger makes you stronger. It is like a tide running out, leaving you depleted.
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But when the violence is invisible, no one knows. It is the violence that is more intimate than sex, that no one ever talks about. It is the darkest secret, the thing that binds you together.
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Things happened to a person; one must learn to accept those things. One must not rebel too much against the natural order; the price one had to pay would be too high—a life of guilt or loneliness.
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If you cannot talk about the thing that is at the center of your life—cannot let bits slip out for fear of revealing the entire story—you develop what might pass for a natural reticence, a habit of listening rather than of telling stories yourself.
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wife that he loved her—and had been perplexed and dismayed when certainty had become uncertain, then had turned to disappointment.
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I thought then about how my father had once told me that the story was there before you ever heard about it and that the reporter's job was simply to find its shape, but when I put down my
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He followed her; he had nowhere else to go. I knew what he was thinking. He had to get her back. He had to make her like him again, or his entire world would fall apart.
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I mean, look at it this way. By the time she left us, we got one murder, we got one alleged rape and assault, we got one suicide, and three kids don't have mothers anymore.
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complicitous, was she?' Caroline asked in a small voice after a time. 'No,' I answered as truthfully as I could. 'But I didn't know that then. Your mother often describes
Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
Setting & Locations edit
First Sentence edit
"On my book tours, I am often asked a number of questions: Did he really do it?"
Themes & Symbolism edit
Authors & Contributors edit
- Anita Shreve (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Harcourt
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: 1991
ISBN: 0151857601
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harcourt
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: 1991
ISBN: 0151857601
Page Count: 336
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 813
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