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NAOMI by Berniece Rabe

NAOMI

By

Pub Date: June 4th, 1975
Publisher: Nelson

Just as the author's more rambunctious Rass {KR, 1972) tries vainly to win his father's regard, Naomi seeks her mother's. Mom however is sure that Naomi will never find a husband and will turn out to be a burden like her Aunt Wilma who lived with the family for eight years until, an ""old maid"" of 24, she died of a snake bite. Naomi, Wilma's spittin' image, expects to die young too, for a fortune teller has prophesied that she'll never live to be fourteen, and Naomi does have a few near misses before she does reach that birthday. By then though she has met a nurse who helps her to free herself from other people's expectations and who encourages her new determination to be a doctor. Set in Missouri in the late '30's, Naomi realistically projects an oppressive world of limited options. Likely fuel for feminists, but without the speed and sass of the author's earlier book.