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One
Small Saga
A
novella by Bobbie Louise Hawkins
"Subjective
account of a young woman in the 1950s married to a womanizer.
Understated and extremely observant, the portrait of
others accents the irony of the woman narrator’s situation.
The setting - Denmark, London, the British colonies
where Americans are out of place to begin with - adds
both to the mystique and the humor." - Library
Journal
In
the early 1950s, a young Albuquerque bride accompanies
her husband back to his family home in Denmark, then
to London and the British colonies of Jamaica and British
Honduras. The narrator endures the company of both pathetic
and incorrigible characters while struggling to reconcile
her idealization of The Modern Marriage with the painful
reality of life with a philandering husband.
Through
the widening eyes of her protagonist, who develops into
a woman of depth and vision, Ms. Hawkins creates characters
who must adjust to the demands of others and of circumstances.
Some relinquish the ability to communicate with others.
For a few, adjustment means learning how to communicate
with grace and tolerance. Told with humor, compassion,
and just a hint of sarcasm, One Small Saga ultimately
becomes a story of human compromise and adaptation to
the quiet disasters of an ordinary life.
Bobbie
Louise Hawkins was raised in west Texas and now lives
in Bolinas, California. She has worked as an artist,
playwright, and actress, in addition to writing both
poetry and prose. She has toured regularly in the United
States and Canada in the company of Rosalie Sorrels
and Terry Garthwaite.
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