A SPARK OF JOY

by Barbara Schoen ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 1969

In an older first person than A Place and a Time (1967), this explores the interdependent but sometimes corrosive relationships between three young married couples, four of whom are working together in a geophysicists' lab, and the identity crisis of the youngest wife among them, with whom you can easily identify. Ellen, after she marries Jim, feels both useless and excluded and even having the baby (which Jim rather arbitrarily suggests) is not a complete corrective: then there's Jim's relationship with his working partner, Fred, more brilliant if more difficult; while Nora Ryer, working and competing with her husband, Ross, finally cancels out her biological destiny by opening a shipment of radioactive materials. All of these problems of what to be or not to be are more and less (another convenient if drastic solution) levelled away in a story which reads and will be read with inordinate ease--in a flurry of sparks and soapflakes.

Pub Date: April 21, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crowell

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1969

Categories: FICTION