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Diffidence unfolds in one of
storytelling's mystery zones, a place where the battle for distance
between
narrator and her
objects is both fierce and oddly stylized. I don't
remember when I last read such
intelligently constructed writing.
Plus, it's erotic and visually beautiful.
—Andrei Codrescu
The stunning narrative of
an artist’s struggle towards creative and personal fulfillment,
Diffidence
traces its
protagonist’s journey through divorce, motherhood and love.
Allusive
and lyrical, Diffidence ranges from brutal
realism to psychological
impressionism. This dualism is paralled by the central players in
Claire’s
life, each
convincingly realized, yet imbued with an artful symbolism.
The claustrophobic locus of
Fire Island is the theatre for an intense series of recollections. A
childhood
populated by a charming, alcoholic father, and a capricious
mother, June, whose
intrusive machinations stem
from thwarted ambition. Their marriage is a
syllabus of misdirection, which Claire unwittingly followed in her
disastrous
marriage. Part idyll, part oubliette, the island represents the
crippling
ambivalence which Claire must overcome.
Like the doctor’s shots of
tranquilizer which mask the worst excesses of her father’s drunken
rages,
Claire’s
frustrated relationships and disillusionment are occluded
by a
reticence to play a real, definable role in her own
life. At its root, Diffidence
is the story of a ingenuous mind preparing to act.
Claire is subject to her
photographer-friend Ellen’s unsparing lens. As the veil is lifted, she
is
forced to confront
herself. To this end, the narratorial voice swings between
the third and second persons, challenging the reader
to follow Claire’s
uncomfortable progress.
Into this mix comes gallery
owner Patrick O’Conner. O’Conner becomes the imperfect catalyst for
Claire’s
growing self-possession. But memories of her husband, and
her troubled
relationship with June and daughter
Ruth remain constant reminders of an
earlier, disappointed self.
Jean Harris captures the flavors of
island existence in her exploration of an incomplete and peripatetic
life,
stripped-down and painfully reconstructed in the throes of
an uncommon passion.
Elegant, sexy, and
cinematic—Diffidence
tantalizes as it discloses.
Diffidence is a
mélange of air and stone, strength and vulnerability.
Powerful and
sensitive at the same time,
the novel squeezes destinies in one cup of
prosa-forte that you want to swallow sip by sip thinking of lost love
and
conquered vanities. Jean Harris's
territory is the psychology of the couple—its gaps and attractions, its
pains
and revelations… she negotiates souls. —Carmen Firan, author of
The
Farce and Punished Candors
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