THE OTHER WOMAN

by Joy Fielding ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1982

Unlike Fielding's Kiss Mommy Goodbye, which featured zippy child-kidnap action and terse dialogue, this hackneyed soap--the title tells all--is a static stew of banal talkathons, glossy padding, and pointless flashbacks. Jill Plumley, 34, has been wed for four years to handsome, brilliant lawyer-husband David--whom she stole from his first wife Elaine. But now gorgeous law-student/clerk Nicole Clark announces (at a firm picnic): ""I'm going to marry your husband."" And so Jill writhes for the next 250 pages--wondering whether David is indeed succumbing to nasty Nicole's seductive warfare. Meanwhile, too, as flashbacks fill in the Elaine/David/Jill triangle of yore, Jill wrestles with other clichÉd headaches: ex-wife Elaine's obnoxiousness; the surliness of step-kids Jason and Laurie (who may be anorexic); the dreariness of work as a college teacher of TV techniques. (For David's sake, Jill gave up her heavy-traveling duties as a glamorous TV producer.) But only after a sudden plop of implausible melodrama--Jill's older friend Beth kills her longtime husband Al (Dave's partner), now revealed as a hideous wife-abuser--does Jill realize, while putting together a TV documentary, that she too is a wife-abuse victim: ""she was as bruised as any of the photographs. It was just that her bruises didn't show."" So finally, in a refreshing but tackedon Lib twist (""I want my pride back. I want my soul""), Mill happily gives shallow David over to Nicole--who has indeed already managed to bed him. Dated, second-string TV-movie material, unenhanced by the nonstop suburban chatter (re housekeepers, sex, divorce, exercise, movies, etc.)--but undemanding devotees of the Other Woman genre may want to stay tuned long enough to enjoy the relatively original fadeout.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1982

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1982

Categories: FICTION