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Gloria |
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 Gloria by Keith Maillard Soho Press 643 pages, September 2000 Reviewed by Robert Tolins It is America in the 1950's, in the town of Raysburg, West Virginia, and the Cotter family is enjoying all the benefits of that affluent era, and suffering all of its suffocating sterility. Gloria Cotter is the young daughter of an immensely wealthy steel magnate and his beautiful, bitter and gracelessly aging wife. Ted Cotter drinks with a boorish and self-loathing war buddy. Laney, his wife, vents her bitterness on her daughter, whose youth and vitality she actively envies as she feels her own quickly fading. Gloria is everything her parents objectively could want. She is beautiful, intelligent, and dating (on and off) the right sort of boy. But she has within her a thirst for the spiritual aspects of life that she cannot find with her family or her environment. After enduring the banality of the social regimen that is her obligation, Gloria escapes into academia. As the other characters and their world drift inexorably toward the consequences of their lives' emptiness, Gloria begins to discover the meaning she seeks in culture and the enlightened ministrations of a delightfully unorthodox professor. She then comes face to face with a chance to actualize her vision of a more meaningful life in the conclusion. This is as pure an evocation of an era as one can desire in fiction. It is rich with minute details that paint a realistic and satisfying portrait of the world in which this family functions on the surface, and founders within. The style is rich and fluid, in contrast to the terse prose that has become increasingly popular in today's writing. But the book communicates exactingly and is ultimately an effortless and rewarding read. There is humor, compassion and realism enough to keep the reader entertained as well as informed throughout. Don't let the length of this book deter you. Take it as a period piece, a romance or an enlightening view of a period of the past marked by essential conflict between the material and the spiritual that still resonate today. On any level, this novel is a real pleasure. |
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