A Mother in History
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- Synopsis
- Jean Stafford's unforgettable portrait of Marguerite Oswald, the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald.Curious about &“the influences and accidents and loves and antipathies and idiosyncrasies&” that shaped Lee Harvey Oswald, the novelist and short story writer Jean Stafford spent nine hours interviewing Marguerite Oswald in May 1965. A Mother in History (1966) is the acerbic result, an indelible portrait of a woman hungry for money, fame, and attention, full of righteous self-pity, and relentless in professing her son&’s blamelessness: &“Killing does not necessarily mean badness. You find killing in some very fine homes for one reason or another.&” Stafford&’s controversial profile elicited mixed reviews—Newsweek praised it as a &“masterpiece of character study,&” while Time called it &“the most abrasively unpleasant book in recent years&”—and angry readers accused her of seeking to &“enthrone a wicked woman&” and &“demolish the sacred throne of motherhood.&” It captures a moment in history when the trauma of Dallas was still raw, Lee Harvey Oswald&’s guilt was widely accepted, and Marguerite Oswald, with her obsessive &“research&” into hidden &“truths&” and the machinations of an omnipresent &“they,&” appeared to be a singular prisoner of maternal delusion, and not a harbinger of the decades to come.
- Copyright:
- 2021
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9781598536959
- Publisher:
- Library of America
- Date of Addition:
- 05/04/21
- Copyrighted By:
- Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y.
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- History, Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Language Arts, Communication
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.
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- by Jean Stafford
- in History
- in Nonfiction
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- in Language Arts
- in Communication