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Book Cover for: A Proper Marriage, Doris Lessing

A Proper Marriage

Doris Lessing

"A totally modern work. Martha Quest is, above all, ironically percieved by the author in whose hands irony is an instrument of compassion." -- New Republic

An unconventional woman trapped in a conventional marriage, Martha Quest struggles to maintain her dignity and her sanity through the misunderstandings, frustrations, infidelities, and degrading violence of a failing marriage. Finally, she must make the heartbreaking choice of whether to sacrifice her child as she turns her back on marriage and security.

A Proper Marriage is the second novel in Doris Lessing's classic Children of Violence series of novels, each a masterpiece on its own right, and, taken together, an incisive and all-encompassing vision of our world in the twentieth century.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Harper Perennial
  • Publish Date: Sep 1st, 1995
  • Pages: 448
  • Language: English
  • Edition: Harperperennial - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.00in - 5.00in - 1.30in - 0.90lb
  • EAN: 9780060976637
  • Categories: WomenLiteraryComing of Age

About the Author

Lessing, Doris: -

Winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, Doris Lessing was one of the most celebrated and distinguished writers of our time, the recipient of a host of international awards. She wrote more than thirty books--among them the novels Martha Quest, The Golden Notebook, and The Fifth Child. She died in 2013.

Praise for this book

"Very impressive....Portrays modern woman in all her complexity." -- Literary Horizons

"One cannot praise the writing too highly...She plays on language as on an instrument with the severe discipline of a professional master." -- Best Seller

"A totally modern work. Martha Quest is, above all, ironically percieved by the author in whose hands irony is an instrument of compassion." -- New Republic

"I read the Children of Violence novels and began to understand how a person could write about the problems of the world in a compelling and beautiful way. And it seems to me that as the most important thing I could ever do." -- Barbara Kingsolver

"With deceptive simplicity she reveals more about the private depths of mind and soul that perhaps one ought to know." -- Daily Telegraph