Bibliograph

Queen for a day, a novel in stories, Maxine Rosaler

Type

Label

Queen for a day, a novel in stories, Maxine Rosaler

Language

eng

Index

no index present

Literary Form

fiction

Main title

Queen for a day

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Responsibility statement

Maxine Rosaler

Sub title

a novel in stories

Summary

After Mimi Slavitt's three-year-old son, Danny, is diagnosed with autism, she finds herself in a world nearly as isolating as her son's. It is a position she shares only with mothers like herself, women chosen against their will for lives of sacrifice and martyrdom. Searching for miracles, begging for the help of heartless bureaucracies while arranging every minute of every day for children who can never be left alone, they exist in a state of perpetual crisis, normal life always just out of reach. In chapters told from Mimi's point of view and theirs, these women emerge as conflicted, complex individuals, totally unsuited for sainthood, often dreaming of the day they can just walk away. Taking its title from the 1950s reality TV show in which the contestants-housewives living lives filled with pain and suffering-competed with one another for deluxe refrigerators and sets of stainless steel silverware, Queen for a Day portrays a group of imperfect women coping under enormous pressure

Target audience

adult

Classification