Dewey Edition19
Reviews"One of her profoundest visionary excursions." --Gail Godwin,Chicago Tribune Book World "An extraordinary and compelling meditation about the enduring need for loyalty, love and responsibility." --Time "A brilliant fable." --Maureen Howard, front page,The New York Times Book Review "Doris Lessing again presents herself as one of the most intelligent of all modern novelists." --Philadelphia Bulletin "The most fluid and suggestive of all her books." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch "A short, easily read novel...part science fiction and part 19th-century realism, its effect is profoundly affecting and mystical... especially moving for those who have responded to Lessing's previous work." --Houston Chronicle "A major work, one that well proves her vigor, originality and importance as a novelist." --Cleveland Free Press, "One of her profoundest visionary excursions." --Gail Godwin, Chicago Tribune Book World "An extraordinary and compelling meditation about the enduring need for loyalty, love and responsibility." -- Time "A brilliant fable." --Maureen Howard, front page, The New York Times Book Review "Doris Lessing again presents herself as one of the most intelligent of all modern novelists." -- Philadelphia Bulletin "The most fluid and suggestive of all her books." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch "A short, easily read novel...part science fiction and part 19th-century realism, its effect is profoundly affecting and mystical... especially moving for those who have responded to Lessing's previous work." -- Houston Chronicle "A major work, one that well proves her vigor, originality and importance as a novelist." -- Cleveland Free Press, "An extraordinary and compelling meditation about the enduring need for loyalty, love and responsibility."-- Time "A brilliant fable." -- Maureen Howard, front page, The New York Times Book Review "Doris Lessing again presents herself as one of the most intelligent of all modern novelists." -- Philadelphia Bulletin "The most fluid and suggestive of all her books." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch "A short, easily read novel...part science fiction and part 19th-century realism, its effect is profoundly affecting and mystical... especially moving for those who have responded to Lessing's previous work." -- Houston Chronicle "A major work, one that well proves her vigor, originality and importance as a novelist." -- Cleveland Free Press
Edition DescriptionReprint
SynopsisIn a beleaguered city where rats and roving gangs terrorize the streets, where government has broken down and meaningless violence holds sway, a woman -- middle-aged and middle-class -- is brought a twelve-year-old girl and told that it is her responsibility to raise the child. This book, which the author has called "an attempt at autobiography," is that woman's journal -- a glimpse of a future only slightly more horrendous than our present, and of the forces that alone can save us from total destruction., In a beleaguered city where rats and roving gangs terrorize the streets, where government has broken down and meaningless violence holds sway, a woman -- middle-aged and middle-class -- is brought a twelve-year-old girl and told that it is her responsibility to raise the child. This book, which the author has called -an attempt at autobiography,- is that woman's journal -- a glimpse of a future only slightly more horrendous than our present, and of the forces that alone can save us from total destruction.