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Alice Adams (1) (1926–1999)

Autor von Superior Women

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25+ Werke 1,790 Mitglieder 27 Rezensionen

Über den Autor

Alice Adams was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1926 and grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. After graduating from Radcliffe College, she married and had a son in 1951. Adams later recalled her late 20s and early 30s as the worst years of her life. After divorcing her husband in 1958, she mehr anzeigen worked at secretarial and clerical jobs to support herself and her son. Adams published her first work of fiction when she was about thirty, and was more than forty-years-old by the time she began making a living solely as a writer. In 1982, in recognition of the twelfth consecutive appearance of her work in "Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards," Adams won a special award for continuing achievement. The only other previous winners were Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike. A New York Times best-selling author, many of Adams's books, among them A Southern Exposure and Almost Perfect, focus on love and on women struggling to find their place in the world. Other works of Adams include the novels Medicine Men, a story that explores the relationship between doctors and their patients, and Superior Women, a compelling tale of five women who come of age during World War II. Now a San Francisco resident, Adams's work has been compared for Southern flavor to that of Flannery O'Connor and for sophistication to F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Bowker Author Biography) Alice Adams was born in Virginia and graduated from Radcliffe College. The author of eleven novels and dozens of prize-winning short stories, she was the recipient of an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She lived in San Francisco until her death in 1999. (Publisher Provided) weniger anzeigen
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Werke von Alice Adams

Superior Women (1984) 274 Exemplare
The Best American Short Stories 1991 (1991) — Herausgeber — 183 Exemplare
Caroline's Daughters (1991) 174 Exemplare
A Southern Exposure (1995) 116 Exemplare
The Stories of Alice Adams (2002) 108 Exemplare
Second Chances: a novel (1984) 100 Exemplare
Almost Perfect (1993) 92 Exemplare
After the War (2000) 81 Exemplare
Medicine Men (1997) 77 Exemplare
Families and Survivors (1974) 76 Exemplare
Rich Rewards (1980) 76 Exemplare
Listening to Billie (1977) 73 Exemplare
Beautiful Girl (1978) 71 Exemplare
The Last Lovely City (1999) 69 Exemplare
Return Trips (1985) 62 Exemplare

Zugehörige Werke

The Best American Short Stories of the Century (2000) — Mitwirkender — 1,552 Exemplare
The Oxford Book of American Short Stories (1992) — Mitwirkender — 743 Exemplare
The Best American Short Stories 1996 (1996) — Mitwirkender — 245 Exemplare
The Best American Short Stories 1992 (1992) — Mitwirkender — 220 Exemplare
Nothing But You: Love Stories From The New Yorker (1997) — Mitwirkender — 186 Exemplare
The Oxford Book of Travel Stories (1996) — Mitwirkender — 74 Exemplare
Travelers' Tales MEXICO : True Stories (1994) — Mitwirkender — 61 Exemplare
The Best American Short Stories 1976 (1976) — Mitwirkender — 15 Exemplare
Mitä ukkonen todella sanoi (2001) 1 Exemplar

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Dit verhaal over vier op leeftijd komende vrienden speelt zich af binnen de tijdsspanne van één jaar. De vier kernfiguren Celeste, Dudley, Polly en Edward zien zich geconfronteerd met een belangrijk verlies/afscheid in hun leven en even opent zich een gelegenheid tot 'herkansing'. Een verhaal over vriendschappen, relaties, geheimen, over wat telt in het leven, over de angst rond het naderen van de dood. Een verhaal hoe vrienden onderling mekaars wel en wee bekritiseren en bekommentariën.
Het verhaal kabbelt traagjes van januari naar januari, pluspunt is dat de prachtige natuur en de soms hevige weertoestanden als het ware mee een personage zijn.
Best te lezen als je zelf op leeftijd komt, niet bestemd voor wie jong of in de fleur van zijn leven is.
'Vormt de oude dag een herhaling van de puberteit?'. Herkansing is best een toepasselijke titel die in enkele van de levensverhalen een rol speelt.
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½
 
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Baukis | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Nov 19, 2023 |
Alice Adams' novels, generally speaking, all start out with the potential to be an especially good, memorable story. It is hard to pinpoint exactly where she fails, but once again, "Second Chances" is disappointing.

The plot basically involves six old friends and their realization that they are getting old. As they look back through time, and ponder their past actions, they are hoping for a second chance to find true happiness.

Character development is good, but lacks depth when it comes to associating the characters to the plot. Alice Adams effort to incorporate current events into the script definitely date the plot, and that could be an asset, but there is no follow through on details. And it is frustrating how all the loose ends remain there, dangling, at the end of the story.

What was all the drama about Bill if he is so easily pushed aside at the end? Why was there no disapproval from any of the characters when Victor, the father of 7 or 8 children, runs away to a foreign country with Polly?

As much as the “friends” all gossiped throughout the novel, there sure weren’t many details revealed into any of their personal lives.

The one redeeming quality of "Second Chances" is that it addressed the issue of elderly people and their anxiety about aging, losing their spouses, and facing their own mortality. Had the story focused more on that theme, instead of alluding to secret covert activities it might have been a better novel - and received a better rating.

At the most - a light “chick-lit” summer read.

3 Stars August 2022
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LadyLo | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Dec 21, 2022 |
"A Southern Exposure" takes place in the late 1930s - pre-World War II as a wealthy couple and their only daughter are in the process of relocating from Connecticut to a small town in the Deep South. A town not much know for anything other than the fact that a famous poet resides there. I expected a clash of fast track urban sophistication versus modest laid-back southern genteel manners. Was I in for a surprise!

Acclaimed mostly for her award winning short stories, Alice Adams falls short in composing full novels trying to blend scandalous love affairs with a variety of social issues: the war, the looming threat of a Holocaust, civil rights, mental illness, women’s roles in society, and abortion. However, she does not delve too deeply into any one issue, skirting the perimeter, jumping from character to character in a fast paced plot. Even though I assume the plot is meant to be taken seriously it come across is light fiction. One humorous example: the family moving south is Mr. and Mrs Baird, and when they arrive they want to sound southern so pronounce their name “Baaard” which is interpreted as Bad. So everyone in town is calling them Mr. and Mrs. Bad.

In this particular novel the problem is that in many ways the plot just does not seem authentic for the time frame of the story - late 1930s in a small town of rural America. Some examples: In this small cast of characters, a 12 year old girl’s best friend from school is a black boy. A female is going to college to become an attorney. Married folk are jumping from bed to bed as though the sexual revolution of the 1960s had already taken place, and everyone in town seems to have phones and cars. Is that possible?

In addition, despite being born and raised in Virginia, Alice Adams mocks the southern accents, and derides the hypocrisy of the “southern manners”.

The one redeeming quality is that the plot is unpredictable - it is quite a page turner. In many ways it resembles "Peyton Place" which created quite a sensations 40 years prior to A Southern Exposure’s publication.

Rated 3 Stars August 2022
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LadyLo | Dec 14, 2022 |
I enjoyed it, but I had forgotten how insufferable San Francisco was in the 80s.
 
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auldhouse | 3 weitere Rezensionen | Sep 30, 2021 |

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