Caroline's Daughters

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Acclaimed author Alice Adams introduces five women who are very different from one another -- from their looks to their personalities to the life choices they make -- in this hauntingly sensitive novel. Sage, the beautiful struggling artist, is caught in a hurtful marriage to a younger man; Lisa, overweight and happily married mother of three, fantasizes about living a different, more daring, life; Jill and Fiona are both blond, thin, and career-driven. Finally, there is Portia who, at twenty-five, suffers from chronic indecision and finds herself feeling very alone in the world. These women, who might ordinarily have little in common, are inextricably intertwined, for they are all Caroline's daughters. Now that her daughters are grown, Caroline feels an aching distance between herself and her children. Helpless to intervene in their lives, unable to spare them pain, she still finds that the love that ties a family together is more powerful than the mistakes they all make. Through the heartaches and the celebration, Caroline learns to step back and watches as her daughters grow into the kind of women she could never have expected.From Publishers WeeklyAs Adams's ( Superior Women ) subtle, involving novel begins, Caroline Carter returns home to San Francisco and to her five daughters by three marriages, most of whom were radicals in the '60s and now live vastly different lives. The eldest daughter, Sage, is an unsuccessful ceramic sculptor whose husband is unfaithful; Liza, the wife of a psychiatrist and the mother of three, wants to be a writer; rich Fiona runs a trendy restaurant; Jill is also raking in money as a lawyer-stockbroker (she turns tricks for kicks and big money); "shy, strange" Portia is sexually confused. Caroline is unobtrusively present across the spectrum of her daughters' varied lifestyles, and there is another shadowy link: Roland Gallo, Sage's former lover, who is now bedding Fiona and has a thing for Caroline. Meanwhile, Sage's husband dallies with Jill. Though Adams develops the story in her usual desultory style, there is enough action for all of Caroline's daughters and Caroline herself to undergo huge swings of the pendulum in their careers and private lives. As much a picture of America in the '90s (the specter of AIDS, the growing number of homeless people) as it is of one family's vicissitudes, the novel ends with Caroline's observations about her "beautiful, selfish, spoiled and greedy girls," products of a society visibly coming apart. Literary Guild alternate. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalAlthough unique in character, all four of Caroline's San Franciscan daughters are inclined to be both self-indulgent and overwhelmed by yuppie angst. Sage, 41, is a ceramist who initially has more luck in attracting unfaithful men than in becoming a successful artist. At 35, Liza is the most dependable and dreams of being a writer instead of fulfilling the desires of her children and sexually demanding husband. Fiona, 33, is a wealthy, hedonistic restaurateur who falls victim to one of Sage's ex-lovers. A well-heeled 31-year-old lawyer, Jill satisfies her fantasies by indulging in a scandalous pastime. Portia, 25, the most boring and undeveloped character, drifts from housesitting to gardening and writing poems. In her 11th work, Adams explores familial relationships at their best and worst but falls short of the mark in holding the reader's interest. Literary Guild alternate; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/90.- Mary El len Elsbernd, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland HeightsCopyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.