There's
a long literary tradition - back past Jane Austen through to popular
contemporary writers like Alice Hoffman and Anita Shreve - of ending
books featuring female protagonists with the marriage of the main
character, or perhaps the birth of her first baby. Implied in this
paradigm is an equally old assumption: a husband and children are all
women need to live happily ever after.
Recently, writers have
started challenging this assumption, resulting in an increasing number
of novels - including Little Children, by Tom Perrotta; I Don't Know
How She Does It, by Allison Pearson; and Jump At The Sun, by Kim
McLarin - that begin with their female protagonists already
established as wives and mothers, and wondering if the domestic life is
really all its cracked up to be. Rachel Pastan's new novel, Lady Of
The Snakes, locates itself nicely in this trend. It traces the journey
of Jane Levitsky, a Slavics professor struggling to balance her passion
for her research with her obligations to her husband, Billy, and their
young daughter, Maisie.
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