A VERY DIFFERENT LOVE STORY

by Berry Stainback ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 9, 1976

And it is! Few tales of obsessional love can match the curves that Burton Pugach's madness for Linda Riss hurls at the reader. In June 1959 Burt was a wellheeled lawyer, part-owner of a swank cafe, a movie backer, swimmer in Chrysler Imperials and Cadillac convertibles, husband, father, and so severely a mama's boy that he'd become a hopeless moron about the simplest household cares, such as putting a plate on a table. Sucked into a loveless marriage, he began philandering, sometimes with his wife's help. When he fell for beautiful, virginal Linda, all his fears came into hot focus and his helplessness turned into monumental posturing. At last he hired three men to throw lye in her face so that only he could own her in her disfigurement and blindness. Instead, he got fourteen years behind bars (his behavior was so bizarre that he tried to make a citizen's arrest of the entire court where he was being tried). For many years Linda was condemned to virginity, and then broke loose. When Butt was finally paroled in 1974, he spent eight months courting her. They married! Their story is one of finely shaded paranoia and of Burt's maddening self-pity, a so-called Jewish need ""to mourn"" his goddess's post-deflowerment adventures. Not brilliant, certainly, but headspinning.

Pub Date: Feb. 9, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION