It's Different for a Woman [*SIGNED*]

[spine slightly turned, a bit of wear to book extremities; the jacket shows some wear at edges and corners, minor creasing along top edge of rear panel]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the ffep, with a somewhat whimsical inscription: "For Mary Jane R. / with love / Mary Jane W." You thought "The Snake Pit," the author's semi-autobiographical 1946 best-seller giving a patient's-eye view of a psychiatric hospital, was harrowing Well, brace yourself for this horrifying tale of a fortyish housewife's navigation of the perils of domestic life in the suburbs. Oh, I know, the jacket design/blurb try to soft-pedal it as a "gay and true-to-life story" of an Everywoman coping with certain garden-variety problems like "a handful of in-laws, two children in love and a husband with a roving eye," but don't be fooled! Why, just in the opening pages we find poor Sally worrying over such diverse topics as her failing eyesight, a suspected throat cancer, and the difficulty of finding good watercress -- and, at the urging of her good friend Patricia, considering undergoing a hysterectomy (euphemistically called the "North Shore Operation") in order to maintain her youthful appearance! OK, well, I'm being a little facetious here -- Mary Jane Ward was no Shirley Jackson -- but still, I don't quite trust the cheery packaging, especially given the author's known history of mental illness (she was hospitalized for psychiatric issues three more times, post-"Snake Pit") prior to her death in 1981. (It's also worth noting, perhaps, that following this book it was 17 years before she published another novel.) Signed by Author

Product Info

Publisher: Random House

Year: (c.1952)

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Signed

Seller Info

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