Zelda Blair

In this captivating and page-turning literary novel, Zelda Blair is a young mother trapped in an abusive marriage, navigating a life in which appearances are everything. Zelda resides with her husband and four young children in San Francisco's tony Pacific Heights neighborhood. The daughter of a literature professor and a Manhattan police officer, Zelda is known among friends and acquaintances for her intelligence and genial nature. However, she hides a simmering resentment: She believes that her investment banker husband, Nick, is having an affair with her close friend, Brooke, an outspoken Bay area socialite. Zelda decides to shelter herself and her four daughters at her parents' home, but she never admits to her feelings of shame, confusion, and intimidation, and she struggles with the emotional contradiction of loving a husband who attacks her physically with increasing hostility. She eventually returns home to find Nick in one of his better moods. But her self-deception soon crumbles, and she finally tells her friends about his physical violence. She also begins an extramarital attraction of her own. Later on, things get messy and the lines between lovers and enemies become blurred. The story fairly brims with amiable and charming characters, but it also effectively gets across Zelda's dark history, eliciting empathy and compassion. Foster's prose style is cleareyed and relentless throughout, right up to a rousing conclusion that will shock and satisfy readers. An intense, emotional story of domestic abuse.