FICTION · WOMEN
Joyce Maynard
Also known as: JOYCE MAYNARD
I know the date because it is written on the back of the photograph, which was taken, developed, and printed by my great-aunt Mary, who exposed her negatives to daylight in the back yard instead of using the more complex enlarger and darkroom that first my father, and later I, too, would use.
— from Looking back, 1933
Most acclaimed
To Die For
Danger... Abby St. James knows all about trouble, thanks to her twin sister Michaela, whose unofficial nickname in New York society is the Black Widow. Michaela's tastes have always run to older, wealthy types--all of whom have conveniently died, leaving Michaela a very satisfied widow. Abby is not quite so sophisticated, or so confident about men, but stepping in to oversee her sister's interests in men's magazine Bastion seems harmless enough. Until Stefan Massari, Bastion's publisher, mistakes Abby for Michaela herself--and Abby wonders if getting the job done might be easier with her sister's clout... And Passion... It's a dangerous game, because Stefan and Michaela have an uneasy history, and Abby is falling for dark, sexy Steffan--hard. What's more, although he's always resented Michaela's interference at the magazine, Stefan is falling for Abby, too. But maybe her imitation of Michaela has gone too far. Because someone who wants to hurt Michaela has begun to call--and with each chilling threat, Abby wonders if she'll be the one to take her sister's punishment...when the caller takes her life. ...Can Be A Deadly Mix
Looking back
1933
"From his youthful days as a delivery boy for William Randolph Hearst's Baltimore newspapers through his many years as a journalist and commentator, Russell Baker has been a keen observer of American politics and culture. Now, in these eleven essays, all originally published in The New York Review of Books, he looks back on a group of iconic public figures from his own past.". "Here are presidents - Lyndon Johnson feuding with Robert F. Kennedy over the legacy of John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon in his grasping, spectral exile. Here are would-be presidents - Eugene V. Debs and Barry Goldwater, "gentlemen fallen among brutes," and Hearst himself, feuding with Theodore and then Franklin Roosevelt. Here too are those who set their sights on something besides the presidency: Martin Luther King, in Baker's view "probably the one indisputably great American of the century's second half," Joe DiMaggio, living a life in tragic contrast to his own myth, and the disputatious memoirists of The New Yorker's glory days. And tucked in are glimpses of Marilyn Monroe and Mary Todd Lincoln, a bearded lady and a nudist queen."--BOOK JACKET.
Labor Day
2009
With the end of summer closing in and a steamy Labor Day weekend looming in the town of Holton Mills, New Hampshire, thirteen-year-old Henry—lonely, friendless, not too good at sports—spends most of his time watching television, reading, and daydreaming about the soft skin and budding bodies of his female classmates. For company Henry has his long-divorced mother, Adele—a onetime dancer whose summer project was to teach him how to foxtrot; his hamster, Joe; and awkward Saturday-night outings to Friendly's with his estranged father and new stepfamily. As much as he tries, Henry knows that even with his jokes and his "Husband for a Day" coupon, he still can't make his emotionally fragile mother happy. Adele has a secret that makes it hard for her to leave their house, and seems to possess an irreparably broken heart. But all that changes on the Thursday before Labor Day, when a mysterious bleeding man named Frank approaches Henry and asks for a hand. Over the next five days, Henry will learn some of life's most valuable lessons: how to throw a baseball, the secret to perfect piecrust, the breathless pain of jealousy, the power of betrayal, and the importance of putting others—especially those we love—above ourselves. And the knowledge that real love is worth waiting for. In a manner evoking Ian McEwan's Atonement and Nick Hornby's About a Boy, acclaimed author Joyce Maynard weaves a beautiful, poignant tale of love, sex, adolescence, and devastating treachery as seen through the eyes of a young teenage boy—and the man he later becomes—looking back at an unexpected encounter that begins one single long, hot, life-altering weekend.