The Wrong Kind of Woman: A Novel
Sarah McCraw Crow
Oct 2020 · MIRA
4.5star
2 reviewsreport
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284
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About this ebook
“A smart and thoughtful” women’s fiction novel about a widow’s coming into her own during the social changes of the seventies is “engrossing reading” (Publishers Weekly).
In late 1970, Oliver Desmarais drops dead in his front yard while hanging Christmas lights. In the year that follows, his widow, Virginia, struggles to find her place on the campus of the elite New Hampshire men’s college where Oliver was a professor. While Virginia had always shared her husband’s prejudices against the four outspoken, never-married women on the faculty—dubbed the Gang of Four by their male counterparts—she now finds herself depending on them, even joining their work to bring the women’s movement to Clarendon College.
Soon, though, reports of violent protests across the country reach this sleepy New England town, stirring tensions between the fraternal establishment of Clarendon and those calling for change. As authorities attempt to tamp down “radical elements,” Virginia must decide whether she’s willing to put herself and her family at risk for a cause that had never felt like her own.
Told through alternating perspectives, The Wrong Kind of Woman is an absorbing story about finding the strength to forge new paths, beautifully woven against the rapid changes of the early ’70s.
“A glorious debut filled with characters grasping to find a place to belong in a world on the edge of change.” —Carol Rifka Brunt, New York Times–bestselling author Tell the Wolves I’m Home
“Powerful.” —Amy Meyerson, author of The Bookshop of Yesterdays
“The story we need now.” —T. Greenwood, author of Keeping Lucy
“Graceful, solid, and beautifully rendered.” —Abby Frucht, author of Maids
In late 1970, Oliver Desmarais drops dead in his front yard while hanging Christmas lights. In the year that follows, his widow, Virginia, struggles to find her place on the campus of the elite New Hampshire men’s college where Oliver was a professor. While Virginia had always shared her husband’s prejudices against the four outspoken, never-married women on the faculty—dubbed the Gang of Four by their male counterparts—she now finds herself depending on them, even joining their work to bring the women’s movement to Clarendon College.
Soon, though, reports of violent protests across the country reach this sleepy New England town, stirring tensions between the fraternal establishment of Clarendon and those calling for change. As authorities attempt to tamp down “radical elements,” Virginia must decide whether she’s willing to put herself and her family at risk for a cause that had never felt like her own.
Told through alternating perspectives, The Wrong Kind of Woman is an absorbing story about finding the strength to forge new paths, beautifully woven against the rapid changes of the early ’70s.
“A glorious debut filled with characters grasping to find a place to belong in a world on the edge of change.” —Carol Rifka Brunt, New York Times–bestselling author Tell the Wolves I’m Home
“Powerful.” —Amy Meyerson, author of The Bookshop of Yesterdays
“The story we need now.” —T. Greenwood, author of Keeping Lucy
“Graceful, solid, and beautifully rendered.” —Abby Frucht, author of Maids
Ratings and reviews
4.5
2 reviews
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October 11, 2020
I received a free electronic ARC of this novel from Netgalley, Sarah McCraw Crow, and Harlequin-MIRA. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. Sarah McCraw Crow writes a tight, accurate portrayal of the time and place and attitudes women were required to try to workaround. (Believe it or not, things are much better, now. It was, truly, just this bad back in the day, though.) Our story begins on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 1970. The setting is Clarendon College, an all-male school in Westfield, New Hampshire. The Desmarais family consists of Oliver, a tenured professor and clarinet player in the schools' jazz ensemble, daughter Rebecca, 14 and bright, and wife Virginia, just one step away from receiving her Ph.D. when she married Oliver, still on hold on that, teaching the odd class in art history and totally unprepared to step into single parenthood on the death of Oliver on page one. A strong woman, not afraid to show her feelings but able to work around them, we witness the growth of both Virginia and Rebecca over the nest year, the structured changes necessary to become independent women in a world in social rebellion. A good read.
About the author
Sarah McCraw Crow is the author of The Wrong Kind of Woman. When it comes to fiction writing (and reading), Sarah is obsessed with women's lives and the drama of family life. She also loves the Seventies. She's a graduate of Dartmouth College, Stanford University, and Vermont College of Fine Arts, and she's the mom of three young-adult kids. Sarah lives, writes, and gardens on an old farm in New Hampshire,
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