TERESA

The life story of Teresa Bennet (nee Foster) is lingeringly reviewed from Trot, the child, to the 85 year old widow who well knows she was ""born with the struggle inside me"". The chapters do not progress in orderly, chronologically, neat patterns --they allow for association, from present to past -- and back again, and Teresa -- with her feeling of rejection (from her mother), her impatience that her husband -- HJB -- will not accomplish what his talents will permit in music, her concern with her Catholic faith -- which varies with her intent on rebellion,- stands out as a person with a full background. Here -- in these flashbacks, in these interrelated incidents -- is her life with her parents, sisters, and brother; her breaking away from home and her interest in music which leads her to Henry Bennet and all his promise as a composer; the disappointments of their marriage -- and of their children; her abandoning him when she realizes that he will settle for something less than they have dreamed of; and, after a raffish kind of living, her entrance into the Convent of the Little Sister of St. Clare --where she still can follow her gestures of individuality, her determination to meet the truth head on. Inquiring rather than non-accepting, Teresa's course displays the adult in the child-and its reverse- and compounds a portrait of argumentative courage. This ""journey out of time"" has most of its background in England and most of its appeal for women- which is not meant to imply a softer, feminine audience.