When She Was Good

In this mesmerizing, funny, chilling novel. the setting is a\nsmall town in the 1940s Midwest, the subject the heart of a wounded\nand ferociously moralistic young woman. When she was still a child,\nLucy Nelson had her alcoholic failure of a father thrown in jail.\nEver since then she has been trying to reform the men around her,\neven if that ultimately means destroying herself in the process.\nWith his unerring portraits of Lucy and her hapless, childlike\nhusband, Roy, Roth has created an uncompromising work of fictional\nrealism, a vision of provincial American piety, yearning and\ndiscontent that is at once pitiless and compassionate.

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