Desperate Characters
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Desperate Characters
''Desperate Characters'' is a 1970 novel by Paula Fox. Plot Sophie and Otto Bentwood are a childless, upper-middle class married couple who live in a brownstone in Brooklyn. She is a translator, he an attorney, currently preoccupied by the acrimonious break-up of his long-time business partnership. The action of the novel unfolds in a single long weekend following an incident in which a stray cat bites Sophie on the hand. Though she refuses to see a doctor, Sophie worries incessantly that she may have contracted rabies. Sophie attends a party, lunches with a friend, shops for kitchen appliances, and drives with Otto to their country home. On a night-time walk with Otto's partner, Charlie Russel, she inadvertently confesses to having had an affair. A series of disquieting events – a rock thrown through a bedroom window, a mysterious phone call, the vandalism of the country house – unnerve the Brentwoods, heightening the fragility of their emotional states and their marriage. ...
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Paula Fox
Paula Fox (April 22, 1923 – March 1, 2017) was an American author of novels for adults and children and of two memoirs. For her contributions as a children's writer she won the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1978, the highest international recognition for a creator of children's books. She also won several awards for particular children's books including the 1974 Newbery Medal for her novel '' The Slave Dancer''; a 1983 National Book Award in category Children's Fiction (paperback) for ''A Place Apart''; and the 2008 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for ''A Portrait of Ivan'' (1969) in its German-language edition ''Ein Bild von Ivan''. In 2011, she was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. The NYSW Hall of Fame is a project of the Empire State Center for the Book.. Her adult novels went out of print in 1992. In the mid nineties she enjoyed a revival as her adult fiction was championed by a new generation of American writers. Early life ...
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national " newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the pa ...
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Novels By Paula Fox
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historica ...
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Harcourt (publisher) Books
Harcourt may refer to: People *Harcourt (surname) *Harcourt (given name) Places Canada *Harcourt Parish, New Brunswick * Harcourt, New Brunswick, an unincorporated community * Harcourt, Ontario, a village * Harcourt, Newfoundland and Labrador, a former village France *Harcourt, Eure, a ''commune'' **Arboretum d'Harcourt, one of the oldest arboretums in the country Hong Kong * Harcourt Garden, Hong Kong, a small urban park *Harcourt House (Hong Kong), a commercial building *Harcourt Road, Hong Kong South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands *Harcourt Island ** Cape Harcourt United Kingdom * Harcourt, Cornwall, a coastal settlement *Harcourt Hill, a hill and community in Oxfordshire * Harcourt Arboretum, owned and run by the University of Oxford * Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire *Newton Harcourt, Leicestershire * Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire *Wigston Harcourt, a suburb of Wigston, Leicestershire Elsewhere * Harcourt, Victoria, Australia, a town *Harcourt, I ...
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1970 American Novels
Year 197 ( CXCVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Magius and Rufinus (or, less frequently, year 950 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 197 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * February 19 – Battle of Lugdunum: Emperor Septimius Severus defeats the self-proclaimed emperor Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum (modern Lyon). Albinus commits suicide; legionaries sack the town. * Septimius Severus returns to Rome and has about 30 of Albinus's supporters in the Senate executed. After his victory he declares himself the adopted son of the late Marcus Aurelius. * Septimius Severus forms new naval units, manning all the triremes in Italy with heavily armed troops for war in the East. His soldiers embark on an ...
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You (TV Series)
''You'' is an American psychological thriller television series based on the books by Caroline Kepnes, developed by Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, and produced by Berlanti Productions, Alloy Entertainment, and A+E Studios in association with Warner Horizon Television, now Warner Bros. Television. The first season, which is based on the novel ''You'', premiered on Lifetime in September 2018, and follows Joe Goldberg, a bookstore manager and serial killer who falls in love and develops an extreme obsession. The season stars Penn Badgley, Elizabeth Lail, Luca Padovan, Zach Cherry, and Shay Mitchell. Lifetime announced in July 2018 that ''You'' had been renewed for a second season, based on Kepnes' follow-up novel ''Hidden Bodies''. The series later moved to Netflix and the second season was released in December 2019. The season follows Joe as he moves to Los Angeles and falls in love with local heiress Love Quinn. For the second season, Ambyr Childers was upgraded to a series r ...
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Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine (born Shirley MacLean Beaty, April 24, 1934) is an American actress, author, and former dancer. Known for her portrayals of quirky, strong-willed and eccentric women, MacLaine has received numerous accolades over her seven-decade career, including an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Volpi Cups and two Silver Bears. MacLaine is one of the last remaining stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Born in Richmond, Virginia, MacLaine made her acting debut as a teenager with minor roles in the Broadway musicals ''Oklahoma!'' and ''The Pajama Game''. Following minor appearances as an understudy in various other productions, MacLaine made her film debut with Alfred Hitchcock's black comedy ''The Trouble with Harry'' (1955), winning the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress. She rose to prominence with starring roles in ''Around the World in 80 Days'' (1956), ''Some Came Running'' (1958), '' A ...
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Desperate Characters (film)
''Desperate Characters'' is a 1971 American drama film produced, written, and directed by Frank D. Gilroy, who based his screenplay on the 1970 novel of the same name by Paula Fox. Plot Sophie and Otto Bentwood are a middle-aged, middle class, childless couple trapped in a loveless marriage. He is an attorney, and she is a translator of books. Their existence is affected not only by their disintegrating relationship but by the threats of urban crime and vandalism that surround them everywhere they turn, leaving them feeling paranoid, scared, and desperately helpless. The film details their fragile emotional and psychological states as they interact with each other and their friends. Cast *Shirley MacLaine as Sophie Bentwood *Kenneth Mars as Otto Bentwood * Sada Thompson as Claire *Jack Somack as Leon *Gerald S. O'Loughlin as Charlie *Chris Gampel as Mike Holstein *Mary Alan Hokanson as Flo Holstein *Robert Bauer as Young Man *Carol Kane as Young Girl * Michael Higgins as Fran ...
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Literary Realism
Literary realism is a literary genre, part of the broader realism in arts, that attempts to represent subject-matter truthfully, avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements. It originated with the realist art movement that began with mid- nineteenth-century French literature (Stendhal) and Russian literature (Alexander Pushkin). Literary realism attempts to represent familiar things as they are. Realist authors chose to depict everyday and banal activities and experiences. Background Broadly defined as "the representation of reality", realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, as well as implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the accurate depiction of lifeforms, perspective, and the ...
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Seize The Day (novel)
''Seize the Day'', first published in 1956, is Saul Bellow's fourth novel. It was adapted into the film of the same name. Synopsis The story centers on a day in the life of Wilhelm Adler (a.k.a. Tommy Wilhelm), a failed actor in his forties. He is poor, unemployed and separated from his wife (who refuses to agree to a divorce). He is also estranged from his children and his father, a highly regarded former doctor who lives in the same Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (other) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ... building. Wilhelm is immature and lacks insight, which has brought him to failure. In ''Seize the Day'' Wilhelm experiences a day of reckoning as he is forced to examine his life and to accept the "burden of self." References 1956 American novels Novels by Saul Bellow American no ...
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Miss Lonelyhearts
''Miss Lonelyhearts'' is a novella by Nathanael West. He began writing it early in 1930 and completed the manuscript in November 1932. Published in 1933, it is an Expressionist black comedy set in New York City during the Great Depression. It is about a male newspaper advice columnist who provides advice to lonesome people who becomes so affected by their desperate letters that he spirals into depression, drinking, and ill-considered sexual affairs, which leads to his downfall. Plot summary In the story, Miss Lonelyhearts is the pseudonym for an unnamed male newspaper columnist writing an advice column for the lovelorn and lonesome, a duty that the other newspaper staff consider to be a joke. As Miss Lonelyhearts reads letters from desperate New Yorkers, he feels terribly burdened and falls into a cycle of deep depression, accompanied by heavy drinking and occasional bar fights. He is also the victim of the pranks and cynical advice of Shrike, his feature editor at the newspaper ...
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The Great Gatsby
''The Great Gatsby'' is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts First-person narrative, first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan. The novel was inspired by a youthful romance Fitzgerald had with socialite Ginevra King, and the riotous parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore (Long Island), North Shore in 1922. Following a move to the French Riviera, Fitzgerald completed a rough draft of the novel in 1924. He submitted it to editor Maxwell Perkins, who persuaded Fitzgerald to revise the work over the following winter. After making revisions, Fitzgerald was satisfied with the text, but remained ambivalent about the book's title and considered several alternatives. Painter Francis Cugat's cover art greatly impressed Fitzgerald, and he incorporated aspects of it into the ...
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