An open door - by Anne Leigh Parrish (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Kirkus Reviews calls an open door, "An adroit, dry-witted tale about a strong-willed woman trying to live her life."

It's 1948 and the freedom granted women by the Second World War is gone. Edith Sloan, earning her doctorate, is told by her law student husband to cancel her academic plans. His bright future requires a certain kind of wife: one in the kitchen making dinner for important guests. Frustrated and defiant, Edith leaves him but returns when his begging letters become too much. Trapped by marriage and her husband's ambition, Edith struggles to find her footing and the means to her own survival.

Review Quotes

"Anne Leigh Parrish's portrait of the rigid and stifling American society of the late 1940s, with its poignant sense of missed chances, felt most keenly by women, may invite comparisons with Mary McCarthy, Richard Yates, or Sylvia Plath. But her characteristic blend of satire and compassion makes an open door a distinctive and subtle tale of self-discovery."

Robert Crooke, author of Letting The House Go

"Anne Leigh Parrish's an open door lets readers step back into an America trapped between World War II and the impending sexual revolution, a world whose turbulent desires lurk just below a veneer of specious innocence. A riveting story that confirms Anne Leigh Parrish as a leading cartographer of the yearning heart."

Jacob Appel, author of Millard Salter's Last Day