Cleaning House

Fiction & Literature, Literary
Cover of the book Cleaning House by Nancy Hayfield, Shadow Lawn Press
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Author: Nancy Hayfield ISBN: 9781508084884
Publisher: Shadow Lawn Press Publication: June 20, 2017
Imprint: Filament Books Language: English
Author: Nancy Hayfield
ISBN: 9781508084884
Publisher: Shadow Lawn Press
Publication: June 20, 2017
Imprint: Filament Books
Language: English

It is hard to imagine that anyone could have much that was fresh to say about suburban life; the "mad housewife" is all too familiar to us. Yet in this accomplished first novel Nancy Hayfield has succeeded precisely in taking that familiar subject matter and transforming it into something new and exciting.

This is the narrative of a young housewife in a bedroom suburb who, with the accumulated baggage of an unsatisfactory marriage, her children's incessant demands, and the equally strong demands of her memories (particularly of her dead aunt), is unfaithful to her husband. But here all resemblance to "suburban" fiction ends. Nancy Hayfield's great strength is her irony and her ability to describe. The narrator does not have a blazing affair; rather, she engages in one of the more disappointing orgies on record. As Hayfield knows, the weight of one's life is not so easy to shift.

The novel is full of extraordinary details. No one, for example, has ever described cleaning a refrigerator in so graphic a fashion. Tough without being bitter, the book is a wise look at everyday life, told by a writer who is already a mature talent and from whom we will hear a great deal more.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

It is hard to imagine that anyone could have much that was fresh to say about suburban life; the "mad housewife" is all too familiar to us. Yet in this accomplished first novel Nancy Hayfield has succeeded precisely in taking that familiar subject matter and transforming it into something new and exciting.

This is the narrative of a young housewife in a bedroom suburb who, with the accumulated baggage of an unsatisfactory marriage, her children's incessant demands, and the equally strong demands of her memories (particularly of her dead aunt), is unfaithful to her husband. But here all resemblance to "suburban" fiction ends. Nancy Hayfield's great strength is her irony and her ability to describe. The narrator does not have a blazing affair; rather, she engages in one of the more disappointing orgies on record. As Hayfield knows, the weight of one's life is not so easy to shift.

The novel is full of extraordinary details. No one, for example, has ever described cleaning a refrigerator in so graphic a fashion. Tough without being bitter, the book is a wise look at everyday life, told by a writer who is already a mature talent and from whom we will hear a great deal more.

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