THE BEST OF HUSBANDS

by Alba de Cespedes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1952

From the Italian, in translation by Frances Frenaye, a carefully wrought psychological novel in the first person of a woman who murders ""the best of husbands"". It is a murky and exotic story, set in Rome, and running through some twenty odd years into World War II and the trying days of the occupation. The daughter of a mother who suicided, Alessandra grows up with a hatred for men which is grounded in the dead brother whose virtues she cannot match, and the unsympathetic father she dislikes. Actually, to pare the story down to its Freudian essentials, Alessandra, unable to identify with a man, is really an unexpressed homosexual, and her resentment of her virtuous professor-husband expresses the innate resentment of his masculinity- such as it is. Her unwholesome moments of greatest satisfaction come when she accepts the attentions of Tomaso, in lieu of those which her preoccupied husband had denied her...Possibly for the Moravia market, but not in full strength, a rather seedy story of emotional deviation.

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1952

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952

Categories: FICTION