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When She Was Good
  
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When She Was Good (Paperback)

by Philip Roth (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Product Description

Product Description

In this funny and chilling novel, the setting is a small town in the 1940s Midwest, and the subject is the heart of a wounded and ferociously moralistic young woman, one of those implacable American moralists whose "goodness" is a terrible disease.

When she was still a child, Lucy Nelson had her alcoholic failure of a father thrown in jail. Ever since then she has been trying to reform the men around her, even if that ultimately means destroying herself in the process. With his unerring portraits of Lucy and her hapless, childlike husband, Roy, Roth has created an uncompromising work of fictional realism, a vision of provincial American piety, yearning, and discontent that is at once pitiless and compassionate. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.


From the Back Cover

"High, careful tragedy, nasty as life, and Roth emerges...as a Dreiser who can write!" —Stanley Elkin

"Roth is a living master." —Harold Bloom, The New York Review of Books --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

 
3.0 out of 5 stars Effects Of An Alcoholic Father, April 25 2004
By C Gosnell (Pocono Mountains , Pa, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: When She Was Good (Paperback)
The beginning of the book is very slow moving and at times confusing. It does progress into a more enjoyable read. The ending is an astounding and sad.

Lucy seems only strong when confronting her parents. The effects of her alcoholic and abusive father can be seen in her younger life and her marriage. What he suggests she does to take care of one of her problems during college only shows how an alcoholic never has the means for the important things in life but always has the means for their booze.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreaking, Sep 23 2003
By Angela (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: When She Was Good (Paperback)
This book broke my heart.
I actually cried at the end.
Lucy is so easy to identify with,I felt her pain and frustration.
What an ending!
Definitly worth a read.]
a little slow at first, but definitly worth it.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Philip Roth: One of America's greatest contemporary writers, Aug 10 2003
By cloudydawn (New York City) - See all my reviews
This review is from: When She Was Good (Paperback)
and also one of America's greatest contemporary misogynists.

Lucy Nelson (the protagonist in "WSWG") is my kind of gal. She tells it like it is.

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 		 Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent read
There are few pleasures comparable to reading good prose. Sharply defined characters are to be expected of any writer worthy of publication; similarly, a good plot is rudimentary... Read more
Published on Aug 5 2001 by E. Cox

2.0 out of 5 stars Mean spirited
Woman-hating man writes novel about man-hating woman.
Published on April 23 2001 by Ted Kleine

2.0 out of 5 stars Roth without Jews? Oy vay!
I have read nearly all of Philip Roth's works over the last four months, and this very early work is the only book of his that I didn't like at all. Read more
Published on Oct 26 2000 by Lawrence A. Kurfiss

2.0 out of 5 stars My least favorite Roth...
This isn't an awful novel, by any stretch, but I've given it a mere 2 stars because Roth's other works are so much better. Read more
Published on Jul 4 2000 by Arthur

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing thorny little book
When I first finished When She Was Good, it didn't feel finished. I had to spend a long time chewing over the character of Lucy and Roth's approach to her and her world. Read more
Published on April 3 2000 by C. Gilbert

4.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down
Just finished reading it... While I have doubts about the (invisible) transformation Lucy experiences at the very end of the book, this is still one of the better written... Read more
Published on Mar 12 1999

4.0 out of 5 stars It is only once in a great while,
even in the work of such a crafty writer as Philip Roth, that the "roundness" of a character (which we are taught to admire and comment on in our reviews) takes on an... Read more
Published on Jun 12 1997

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