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BREAD FOR THE LIVING by Mary Lesswell

BREAD FOR THE LIVING

By

Pub Date: July 27th, 1948
Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin

The ""Suds"" devotees will get a surprise in this, for the sense of laughter is replaced by a serious, sympathetic story of a woman's emancipation. Raquel's O'Riordan comes from Mexico to Brownsville, meets and marries Fausto Hidalgo against all family arguments. As his wife she lives a subjected, subdued life, producing only two daughters, no sons, until a doctor, rather than a midwife, saves her from a childbirth infection. She leaves Fausto, finds independence in teaching music, in helping her ters adjust to a broader American world, and returns to Fausto only to lend him face in his last play for wealth and security through a revolutionary general. With his she wins total freedom from Spanish-Mexican bondage....A turn of the century cleavage of customs and traditions, championed by an intelligent, (if given to over- abundance of introspection) revitalized woman, this is definitely divorced from her earlier books, and should find a new market among women readers of a more than rental library type.