Borrowed Finery: A Memoir
Page 18
—Megan O’Grady, Vogue
“Precise, elegant, yet truly heart wrenching … If Borrowed Finery were simply the triumph of careful craft and flawlessly controlled prose that it certainly is, it would still rank as one of the most impressive books of the year. But it offers its readers something even more valuable: an inspiring embodiment of courage, integrity, and, to use an old-fashioned word, character.”
—Gerald Howard, The Nation
“Compelling … You feel you’ve been privy to something memorable and weighty: the birth, however difficult, of an artist’s—a woman artist’s—sensibility.”
—Daniel Mendelsohn, New York magazine
“There is a tough, ferruginous streak in Fox’s prose that is inimical to sentimentality.… Fox never pretends to have told all, or even mostly all. But she does restore to a genre that has become characterized by garrulous frankness the long-forgotten power of discretion.”
—Zoë Heller, The New Republic
“Devastatingly clear-eyed … a chilling, bracing exploration of her own memory.”
—Time Out New York
“Our only regret: the memoir ends too soon.… Sequel, please.”
—Lisa Levy, Mademoiselle
“Lovely … poignant, beautifully crafted.”
—John Freeman, Star-Tribune (Minneapolis)
“Fox is elegantly understated, relying on well-chosen detail and striking images to tell her tale.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Startling and wonderful in many ways … Borrowed Finery is pure, powerful in its austerity and stark presentation of moments as artifacts that have their own resonance.”
—Darcy Cosper, The Hartford Courant
“Delicate, understated … Borrowed Finery reminds us that a successful memoir doesn’t merely require a good story but also a writer capable of doing that story justice.”
—Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald
“Austere yet painfully moving: a refreshing contrast to the spate of whiny memoirs currently crowding bookstore shelves.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Borrowed Finery consists of some of the most perfect prose published last year, as pristine and silvery as a mountain brook in the moonlight.”
—Salon.com
“Fox depicts selfishness, neglect, and loneliness in a manner that may be dry and conversational but whose economical passion stirs fervent sympathy in the reader.”
—Jeanne Hamilton, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis)
“A rare gem.”
—James Schiff, Book magazine
Paula Fox is the author of the memoir The Coldest Winter (Henry Holt), six novels, including Desperate Characters, and is a Newbery Award–winning children’s book author. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
BORROWED FINERY. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 by Paula Fox. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fox, Paula.
Borrowed finery : a memoir / Paula Fox.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-42519-8
EAN 978-0-312-42519-7
1. Fox, Paula—Childhood and youth. 2. Novelists, American—20th century—Biography. I. Title.
PS3556.094 Z464 2001
813'.54—dc21
00-054398
First published in the United States by Henry Holt and Company
eISBN 9781466850149
First eBook edition: July 2013