Looking for Mr Goodbar

Looking for Mr Goodbar by Judith Rossner, 284 pages

On New Years Day 1973, schoolteacher Roseann Quinn was stabbed to death in her New York City apartment by John Wayne Wilson, an unbalanced drifter she had met only a couple of hours earlier in a local bar.  The crime, surrounded by a haze of sordid rumors about the life of a single woman in the depths of the sexual revolution, became an immediate tabloid sensation.  Coverage of the case inspired novelist Judith Rossner to write Looking for Mr Goodbar, which begins with the capture of the murderer of Theresa Dunn, a New York City schoolteacher.  The killer, Gary Cooper White, is nonplussed when he learns of her profession - "Boy, some of the people they got teaching kids, I'm keeping mine out of school."

The novel then retraces the life of Theresa from early childhood to violent consummation.  Rossner's imaginative reconstruction of Quinn is remarkable for its ambiguity.  Theresa's first sexual relationship, with a manipulative professor, is a case in point - although the professor is a thorough (and thoroughly believable) bastard, Theresa is not a simple innocent victimized by an older man in a position of authority, but neither is her sexual awakening a purely positive experience.  Her double life is lampshaded by the lives of her two sisters - one, married and boring, the other, liberated but miserable.  The same dichotomy is expressed in the two men with whom she carries on simultaneous relationships in the latter half of the novel - James, the caring lawyer who connects with her emotionally, and Tony, the violent hoodlum who both arouses and satisfies her lust.  It is this lust which connects her to Gary and his world, but it is her fear of losing an empty freedom which drags her down to her end.

The Rib and Thigh Bones of Desire

 

 The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire by Sandra Hutchison   405 pages

I have to admit that I didn’t pay much attention to the title of this book when I entered the Shelf Awareness newsletter contest; I was more captivated with the story and the cover. I kinda cringed when it arrived in the mail; seemed a little too much erotica for me. But, luckily, the story lived up to, and exceeded, my expectations.

The story opens with David Asken and his family returning from their family vacation at Walt Disney World. David hates to fly, that's obvious with the first sentence: “What was the point of being married, David wondered, if he couldn’t at least have a little company while he was pretending not to be terrified?” They are flying through a thunderstorm. Suddenly the “engines roared and the plane lifted steeply up again…the plane suddenly lurched left.” I was hooked and settled into my chair for a wonderful read.

Chapter Two starts with David’s family’s---wife, Elaine, and daughter, Emily---memorial service. How he escaped, he has no idea. All he knows is that he will never be the same, physically, emotionally, and mentally.

David has been relying on his sister while he was in the hospital. Now that he’s out, he depends a lot on Emily’s babysitter, sixteen-year-old Molly. She has become, basically, his housekeeper.

Molly has her own horrors to survive. Her mother, a celebrated artist, created a work to memorialize Molly’s puberty. It’s a statue made of tampons, logically called Tampon Girl. The mocking is so bad, she’s forced to change schools. Plus her mother is known to have a different man at the house every weekend when Molly goes to her father’s. As the two try to cope with what life has thrown at them, it’s not easy for either. 

The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire is an honest look at grief and coming to grips with their new normal. At first Molly is David’s caretaker and lifeline. But as the story progresses, David becomes Molly’s caretaker and lifeline. In the coming-of-age novel, both protagonists must learn life’s lessons the hard way.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, Hutchison’s second novel. While the premise of the novel does become sexual, it’s not gratuitous. The plot never disappointed. I give The Rib and Thigh Bones of Desire five out of five stars…Hutchison is my new favorite author.