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Los hijos de la viuda
A classic American novel from the author of Borrowed Finery -- 'Chekhovian...Every line of Fox's story, every gesture of her characters, is alive and surprising.' New York Times On the eve of their trip to Africa, Laura Maldonada Clapper and her husband, Desmond, sit in a New York City hotel room, drinking scotch-and-sodas and awaiting the arrival of three Clara, Laura's timid daughter from a previous marriage; Carlos, Laura's flamboyant brother; and Peter, a melancholy editor whom Laura hasn't seen for over a year. But what begins as a bon voyage party soon becomes a bitter, claustrophobic clash of family resentment. From the hotel room to the tiny restaurant to which the five embark, Laura presides over the escalating innuendo and hostility with imperial cruelty, for she is hiding the knowledge that her mother, the family matriarch, has died of a heart attack that morning. Intense and unerringly observed, The Widow's Children is a tour de force from the incomparable Paula Fox.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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936 people want to read
About the author
Paula Fox
57 books391 followersPaula Fox was an American author of novels for adults and children and two memoirs. Her novel The Slave Dancer (1973) received the Newbery Medal in 1974; and in 1978, she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal. More recently, A Portrait of Ivan won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2008.
A teenage marriage produced a daughter, Linda, in 1944. Given the tumultuous relationship with her own biological parents, she gave the child up for adoption. Linda Carroll, the daughter Fox gave up for adoption, is the mother of musician Courtney Love.
Fox then attended Columbia University, married the literary critic and translator Martin Greenberg, raised two sons, taught, and began to write.
A teenage marriage produced a daughter, Linda, in 1944. Given the tumultuous relationship with her own biological parents, she gave the child up for adoption. Linda Carroll, the daughter Fox gave up for adoption, is the mother of musician Courtney Love.
Fox then attended Columbia University, married the literary critic and translator Martin Greenberg, raised two sons, taught, and began to write.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
September 17, 2023
Tessa Hadley, my new, sparkly literary discovery, put me on to this book. She said, in an interview:
No one writes plausibly evil characters quite like Paula Fox. They’re usually mothers. The mother in “The Widow’s Children” is one of literature’s convincing monsters — and we feel her monstrousness from the inside, as well as watching her perform it, tyrannizing everyone around her. What power in her cruelty, in her ruthless play, teasing with her favor and then snatching it back. And how awful it feels to be monstrous. Monstrosity is such a reality in psychology, but perhaps most novelists flinch from writing it head-on, in case it comes out as caricature. The drunk husband in that novel is brilliantly awful too. So difficult to write that drunkenness, petulant and terrifying, lurching among perceptions, awash with panic.
So, I can't say the brilliant Ms. Hadley is wrong, in any of this. I did admire Fox's depiction of the monstrous mother (and the awful, drunk and simpering husband of hers, too).
However, the book felt really difficult to read. It wasn't the fascinating pleasure that Desperate Characters was for me. It was a claustrophobic and dizzying ride through five people's hornet's-nest-heads. Occasionally interrupted by cruel and often emotionally intense remarks, but mainly composed of paragraphs of interiority and narrative summary, my reading experience was a labour. This type of structure really doesn't work for me.
Now, please, don't get me wrong, Paula Fox is a skilled writer everyone should know about. There's something about the nastiness of family dynamics that she has captured here with brutish honesty. There's such tension that the reader, turned into a fly-on-the-wall in the hotel room, fears the swatter.
And there's a lot of snide commentary on the publishing biz, which earned a few chuckles from me:
"The thing about being in publishing," began Peter, "is that you must seem to be interested in art but imprisoned in a system that only values money."
No one writes plausibly evil characters quite like Paula Fox. They’re usually mothers. The mother in “The Widow’s Children” is one of literature’s convincing monsters — and we feel her monstrousness from the inside, as well as watching her perform it, tyrannizing everyone around her. What power in her cruelty, in her ruthless play, teasing with her favor and then snatching it back. And how awful it feels to be monstrous. Monstrosity is such a reality in psychology, but perhaps most novelists flinch from writing it head-on, in case it comes out as caricature. The drunk husband in that novel is brilliantly awful too. So difficult to write that drunkenness, petulant and terrifying, lurching among perceptions, awash with panic.
So, I can't say the brilliant Ms. Hadley is wrong, in any of this. I did admire Fox's depiction of the monstrous mother (and the awful, drunk and simpering husband of hers, too).
However, the book felt really difficult to read. It wasn't the fascinating pleasure that Desperate Characters was for me. It was a claustrophobic and dizzying ride through five people's hornet's-nest-heads. Occasionally interrupted by cruel and often emotionally intense remarks, but mainly composed of paragraphs of interiority and narrative summary, my reading experience was a labour. This type of structure really doesn't work for me.
Now, please, don't get me wrong, Paula Fox is a skilled writer everyone should know about. There's something about the nastiness of family dynamics that she has captured here with brutish honesty. There's such tension that the reader, turned into a fly-on-the-wall in the hotel room, fears the swatter.
And there's a lot of snide commentary on the publishing biz, which earned a few chuckles from me:
"The thing about being in publishing," began Peter, "is that you must seem to be interested in art but imprisoned in a system that only values money."
May 18, 2012
Claustrophobic, yes...intense, yes...brutal, yes...awesome, yes...I can envision Liz Taylor and Richard Burton seething with passion, knocking back drinks, and tearing into each other and everyone present in grim black and white. You'd like to believe that it is impossible for people to be so cruel to one another, but they are...as if they don't know any better, and truth be told, they probably don't and to make it worse, they don't want to try to do better, to be better. As odd as the ending was, it felt right...a good place to leave it. Life goes on...an old woman has died, the ragged remains of her family briefly unite and depart. It means everything and it means nothing.
September 14, 2017
Laura è una donna insensibile, dalla “suprema indifferenza”, che vive come se “il mondo fosse solo una bolla espansa di sé”. Ma tutta la sua famiglia - madre, fratelli, figlia - ha un che d’analogo: la “perversione dei Maldonada”, la definisce un amico, “gente che non ha firmato alcun contratto sociale”. Sono tutte, nella realtà, persone irrisolte, tormentate, infelici, costantemente immerse - nelle inquadrature della Fox - in atmosfere assai cupe. Il romanzo (datato 1976) è dunque pesante, e decolla a fatica… ma poi il “volo” si stabilizza, fino a prendere decisamente quota: a catturare sono le vicende che si movimentano dopo la staticità iniziale (un'ottantina di pagine in una soffocante stanza d’albergo), l’approfondimento psicologico dei personaggi e pure un certo magnetismo nella scrittura della Fox. Il giudizio, alla fine, è sostanzialmente positivo.
P.S.: Leggo nella biografia della scrittrice - non allevata dai genitori e lei stessa responsabile della cessione in adozione di una figlia avuta da adolescente - elementi chiaramente riversati in questa storia.
P.P.S... “quasi gossip”: Quella figlia che Paula Fox ebbe da adolescente è la madre di Courtney Love, cantante e attrice, nonché moglie e vedova di Kurt Cobain, dei Nirvana, suicida nel 1994.
P.S.: Leggo nella biografia della scrittrice - non allevata dai genitori e lei stessa responsabile della cessione in adozione di una figlia avuta da adolescente - elementi chiaramente riversati in questa storia.
P.P.S... “quasi gossip”: Quella figlia che Paula Fox ebbe da adolescente è la madre di Courtney Love, cantante e attrice, nonché moglie e vedova di Kurt Cobain, dei Nirvana, suicida nel 1994.
February 6, 2018
A deceptively simple and ultimately unexpectedly moving novel about several members of a Spanish/Cuban-American family drinking and then going out for a tense dinner. The whole thing takes place mostly over the course of one night, and the perspective shifts with admirable fluidity in the opening chapters but eventually settles on Peter, a book editor and outsider who’s able to observe the truths that the family seeks to keep from each other. It’s a great example of dialogue written with many layers of subtext, and it also has some stark, beautiful, melancholy lines of prose:
“All around him, the gray pastures of the dead for an instant seemed to reverberate with the lost energies of unknown lives, and Peter felt the crushing weight, the sheer effort of a single human life to complete its course.”
“All around him, the gray pastures of the dead for an instant seemed to reverberate with the lost energies of unknown lives, and Peter felt the crushing weight, the sheer effort of a single human life to complete its course.”
August 19, 2015
This was a great book, very well-written, and the characters were well-flushed out. However, I felt I was reading the script for a play. The only part which was different from a script was the narrative between the dialogue. After googling Paula Fox and discovering her own history was very bleak, I could see why Laura, the mother, wasn't able to behave like a stereotypical mother. She had abandoned her daughter, Clara, to be raised by the grandmother, Alma. The family had such dysfunction with so many secrets. The grandmother had passed away the morning of the family gathering in the hotel. Laura was informed and had opportunities to inform the family, but during the whole evening not a word was mentioned about the death. But, as the evening progresses, it seems Laura starts to unravel more and more. Laura can't seem to be the one to deliver the news about Alma, so she sends a messenger. It is interesting to read the reactions of the others to the news. What follows is a whole other decision and discussion over who should attend the funeral?
It is a dark story, and even though it was a novel, the reader could imagine these events could really happen. Only because families are all so different and, I am sure, there is some kind of dysfunction in all families.
It is a dark story, and even though it was a novel, the reader could imagine these events could really happen. Only because families are all so different and, I am sure, there is some kind of dysfunction in all families.
September 4, 2015
I have just read this novel for the third time (I'm on a Paula Fox kick lately) and appreciate it more than before, maybe because I am now used to Fox's forthright depiction of characters, how hers catch themselves out in attitudes. In this case, Laura, the character that frightens all the others is the one who will distort and pronounce upon the others' weaknesses out loud, mercilessly and triumphantly. A genius at bullying, she appears to be all impulse, without the slightest self-consciousness, self awareness or remorse. We have all known people like this, and felt their poisonous power. The more beautiful they are, the more dangerous they can be. And yet they push one to self-reflection, to attempts at coming clean with oneself (something they can never do). This is not an uncommon family dynamic, not at all; but the writing is uncommonly literary, insightful, sharply drawn and suspenseful. I will never understand why Paula Fox has been so overlooked. I suspect the American tendency to want a bright-sided, positive, morally uplifting story is a big cause, but to me there is more solace in truth telling, in evidence that one is not crazy in perceiving how people hurt and degrade themselves and each other.
October 26, 2025
Creo que los personajes están bien construidos pero que odiosos me resultan casi todos
August 27, 2008
Five people circling around each other like wasps. In the first few pages all of the characters are well defined before they meet for drinks and dinner. The mother Laura finds out her mother has died and keeps this secret from her husband, brother and daughter-raised by this now dead Spanish grandmother. Why would someone hold something like this back? This is not just about a mother and daughter but about the three male characters as well, especially Peter Rice, the editor friend. It becomes his story at the end as he looks back on his destitute life. This is a story about trying to stand up against the weight of expected behaviors.
Fox was raised by her grandmother so there are some tones of autobiography with the young woman named Clara. She is a writer's dream. The dialogue is sharp, the descriptions are perfectly hued - "They burst into laughter, their large chins pointed toward each other like prows." This is a reread and I loved every page. It is one of those books, along with Desperate Characters, Light Years, Open Secrets, The Rings of Saturn and Disgrace, that I hold close to my bone as I learn the secrets of writing.
Fox was raised by her grandmother so there are some tones of autobiography with the young woman named Clara. She is a writer's dream. The dialogue is sharp, the descriptions are perfectly hued - "They burst into laughter, their large chins pointed toward each other like prows." This is a reread and I loved every page. It is one of those books, along with Desperate Characters, Light Years, Open Secrets, The Rings of Saturn and Disgrace, that I hold close to my bone as I learn the secrets of writing.
July 9, 2011
I read about Fox as a "writer's writer" in a book review somewhere--probably The New Yorker--and decided to check her out. She has a unique style and a gift for creating atmosphere and delineating interior spaces. Her characters are fascinating and somewhat repulsive eccentrics. Until the last 20 pages or so, I was loving this book, but the end was a let down.
February 8, 2016
He sido incapaz de conseguir que me interesara la historia. No he llegado a entender por qué los personajes (totalmente histriónicos y, en mi opinión, excesivos) actúan como actúan. He pasado todo el libro esperando un revelador final que explicase cómo han llegado a esa situación pero si lo ha habido yo no lo he sabido entender.
June 26, 2010
Paula Fox, where have you been all my life? I must read more by this author. Biting, incisive prose. Gorgeous language. No-holes-barred cruelty. Fiction the way I love it.
May 23, 2011
Half-way through, I am enraptured by the psychological tensions about a simple activity of having dinner with difficult family relations. Paula Fox exquisitely writes.
Full review to come.
Full review to come.
September 3, 2019
Deutschspr. Besprechung aus HansBlog.de:
Es ist eins dieser Familientreffen, das alle Beteiligten lieber mieden: "this ghastly chore, this family matter". Eine Fünfergesellschaft verbringt einen Abend im Hotelzimmer und im Restaurant. Die Figuren umkreisen sich mit Nebengedanken, Hintergedanken, Erinnerungen und Abschweifungen. Sie ignorieren nach Belieben, sie reden Peinliches – und sonst passiert zunächst nicht viel.
Der Roman liefert die hochaufgelöste Wiedergabe eines Familientreffens. Gruppendynamik und Dialoge schreibt Fox meisterlich, aber sie produziert keine köstlich boshaften Einzeiler.
Zwar hat die Hauptfigur Laura ein frisches Wissen, das sie den anderen Versammelten verschweigt. Doch spielt Lauras Wissen auf den ersten rund 140 von 210 Seiten keine Rolle, man vergisst es fast.
Bis zu dieser etwa 140. Seite wird nur geredet. Das erste Kapitel gilt dem Treffpunkt Hotelzimmer, ein weiteres dem anschließenden gemeinsamen Restaurantbesuch. Zwischen Zimmer und Restaurant palavern die Akteure aber auch, deshalb heißt das zweite Kapitel "Corridor" (ich kenne nur die englische Norton-TB-Ausgabe von 1999 und kann die Eindeutschung nicht beurteilen).
Etwa auf der 140. Seite bricht Laura ihr Schweigen und es kommt etwas Bewegung in die Handlung, tatsächlich sehen wir in der erzählten Jetztzeit noch drei weitere Schauplätze.
Paula Fox verarbeitet erkennbar Motive und Figuren aus ihrer eigenen Familiengeschichte, so die spanisch-kubanische Abstammung des mütterlichen Zweigs samt replizierter Personenaufstellung und vieler biografischer Details (darunter die Kleider- und Geldgeschenke, die der jungenTochter wieder weggenommen wurden). Die Autorin identifiziert sich eindeutig mit der Romanfigur Clara: Clara teilt nicht nur wesentliche Elemente von Paula Fox' Biografie, Fox erzählt auch überwiegend aus Claras Perspektive. (Dass die Erzählerin gelegentlich auch in die Köpfe der anderen Figuren blickt, irritiert.)
Paula Fox entblößt ihr Personal als lieblos, unachtsam, selbst- und alkoholsüchtig. Denkt man an Fox' Familiengeschichte und ihre Kindheitsmemoiren In fremden Kleidern, haut die Autorin hier scheinbar erneut ihre verkorkste Familie in die Pfanne.
In der zweiten Buchhälfte franst die Geschichte leicht aus. Dort darf Clara über viele Seiten selbstmitleidig ihre lange zurückliegende Kubakindheit reminszieren, die Einheit von Ort und Zeit gerät aus den Fugen. Sämtliche Familienmitglieder agieren/reden befremdlich bis abstoßend. Der strömende Regen und die schwarzen Wolken im Finale sind zu melodramatisch, Niesel wäre cooler.
Wegen dieser Merkmale fällt es schwer, den Roman trotz aller Meisterschaft entspannt zu loben. Feuilletons in Deutschland und USA priesen das Buch.
Wollte Paula Fox (1923 – 2017) mit den Namen ihrer fünf Hauptfiguren Verwirrung stiften oder gerade Übersicht schaffen? Die drei spanischstämmigen, blutsverwandten Hauptfiguren heißen ähnlich klingend Laura, Clara und Carlos (die Rede ist noch von einer Alma). Die zwei externen Hauptakteure heißen, wiederum ähnlich klingend, Peter und Desmond, die Rede ist zusätzlich von einem Ed.
Fünf Personen nur im Hotel und im Restaurant – das klingt wie die Vorlage zu einem Budget-Theaterstück. Dort ließen sich aber die vielen Hintergedanken und Erinnerungen an weitere Familienmitglieder nicht ohne weiteres erzählen.
Freie Assoziationen:
Der Spielfilm Wer hat Angst vor Virginia Woolfe, wegen der intensiven, klaustrophobischen Gruppendynamik auf engem Raum
Der Spielfilm Blue Jasmin wegen der dominanten älteren weiblichen bizarren Hauptfigur
Paula Fox' Jugendmemoiren In fremden Kleidern/Borrowed Finery, die viele Motive und Konstellationen von Lauras Schweigen/The Widow's Children enthalten
Die Familie aus Lauras Schweigen in jüngeren Jahren zeigt Paula Fox' Roman Luisa/A Servant's Tale
Es ist eins dieser Familientreffen, das alle Beteiligten lieber mieden: "this ghastly chore, this family matter". Eine Fünfergesellschaft verbringt einen Abend im Hotelzimmer und im Restaurant. Die Figuren umkreisen sich mit Nebengedanken, Hintergedanken, Erinnerungen und Abschweifungen. Sie ignorieren nach Belieben, sie reden Peinliches – und sonst passiert zunächst nicht viel.
Der Roman liefert die hochaufgelöste Wiedergabe eines Familientreffens. Gruppendynamik und Dialoge schreibt Fox meisterlich, aber sie produziert keine köstlich boshaften Einzeiler.
Zwar hat die Hauptfigur Laura ein frisches Wissen, das sie den anderen Versammelten verschweigt. Doch spielt Lauras Wissen auf den ersten rund 140 von 210 Seiten keine Rolle, man vergisst es fast.
Bis zu dieser etwa 140. Seite wird nur geredet. Das erste Kapitel gilt dem Treffpunkt Hotelzimmer, ein weiteres dem anschließenden gemeinsamen Restaurantbesuch. Zwischen Zimmer und Restaurant palavern die Akteure aber auch, deshalb heißt das zweite Kapitel "Corridor" (ich kenne nur die englische Norton-TB-Ausgabe von 1999 und kann die Eindeutschung nicht beurteilen).
Etwa auf der 140. Seite bricht Laura ihr Schweigen und es kommt etwas Bewegung in die Handlung, tatsächlich sehen wir in der erzählten Jetztzeit noch drei weitere Schauplätze.
Paula Fox verarbeitet erkennbar Motive und Figuren aus ihrer eigenen Familiengeschichte, so die spanisch-kubanische Abstammung des mütterlichen Zweigs samt replizierter Personenaufstellung und vieler biografischer Details (darunter die Kleider- und Geldgeschenke, die der jungenTochter wieder weggenommen wurden). Die Autorin identifiziert sich eindeutig mit der Romanfigur Clara: Clara teilt nicht nur wesentliche Elemente von Paula Fox' Biografie, Fox erzählt auch überwiegend aus Claras Perspektive. (Dass die Erzählerin gelegentlich auch in die Köpfe der anderen Figuren blickt, irritiert.)
Paula Fox entblößt ihr Personal als lieblos, unachtsam, selbst- und alkoholsüchtig. Denkt man an Fox' Familiengeschichte und ihre Kindheitsmemoiren In fremden Kleidern, haut die Autorin hier scheinbar erneut ihre verkorkste Familie in die Pfanne.
In der zweiten Buchhälfte franst die Geschichte leicht aus. Dort darf Clara über viele Seiten selbstmitleidig ihre lange zurückliegende Kubakindheit reminszieren, die Einheit von Ort und Zeit gerät aus den Fugen. Sämtliche Familienmitglieder agieren/reden befremdlich bis abstoßend. Der strömende Regen und die schwarzen Wolken im Finale sind zu melodramatisch, Niesel wäre cooler.
Wegen dieser Merkmale fällt es schwer, den Roman trotz aller Meisterschaft entspannt zu loben. Feuilletons in Deutschland und USA priesen das Buch.
Wollte Paula Fox (1923 – 2017) mit den Namen ihrer fünf Hauptfiguren Verwirrung stiften oder gerade Übersicht schaffen? Die drei spanischstämmigen, blutsverwandten Hauptfiguren heißen ähnlich klingend Laura, Clara und Carlos (die Rede ist noch von einer Alma). Die zwei externen Hauptakteure heißen, wiederum ähnlich klingend, Peter und Desmond, die Rede ist zusätzlich von einem Ed.
Fünf Personen nur im Hotel und im Restaurant – das klingt wie die Vorlage zu einem Budget-Theaterstück. Dort ließen sich aber die vielen Hintergedanken und Erinnerungen an weitere Familienmitglieder nicht ohne weiteres erzählen.
Freie Assoziationen:
Der Spielfilm Wer hat Angst vor Virginia Woolfe, wegen der intensiven, klaustrophobischen Gruppendynamik auf engem Raum
Der Spielfilm Blue Jasmin wegen der dominanten älteren weiblichen bizarren Hauptfigur
Paula Fox' Jugendmemoiren In fremden Kleidern/Borrowed Finery, die viele Motive und Konstellationen von Lauras Schweigen/The Widow's Children enthalten
Die Familie aus Lauras Schweigen in jüngeren Jahren zeigt Paula Fox' Roman Luisa/A Servant's Tale
October 28, 2022
Vi è mai capitato di guardarvi attorno in un ristorante e immaginare la vita delle persone sedute al tavolo affianco? Bene, ne Il silenzio di Laura vi sembrerà di poter finalmente svelare i segreti dei 4 perfetti sconosciuti che siedono ad un passo da voi: Laura Maldonada Clapper e suo marito Desmond, l’amico di famiglia Peter Rice, Clara Hansen, figlia del primo matrimonio di Laura, e Carlos Maldonada, fratello di quest’ultima.
Ciascuno dei 4 commensali nasconde paure, amori, bugie ma soprattutto sentimenti di rancore e odio, che legano segretamente i protagonisti de Il silenzio di Laura in un morboso intreccio impossibile da sciogliere.
Laura Maldovana, l’aguzzina della combricola, è una razzista ed eccentrica signora dal carattere forte ed impossibile, coniugata col ricco ed alcolizzato Desmond Clapper; i due, in procinto di partire per l’ennesimo viaggio di piacere, attendono gli ospiti per quella che dovrebbe essere un’allegra rimpatriata. Peter Rice è un editor infelice che è totalmente sottomesso al volere di Laura, così come Clara Hansen, donna fragile ed insicura incapace di opporsi al volere della madre. L’unico che apparentemente sembra contrastare Laura è il suo eccentrico fratello, ma sarà vero o si tratterà dell’ennesima “maschera” indossata da questi assurdi personaggi?
Dopo una pungente accoglienza, i coniugi Clapper accompagnano gli ospiti in un rinomato ristorante di New York, dove avranno luogo interessanti e dolorosi scambi di parole. Fugaci frasi di circostanza alternate a “frecciatine” sono le usuali tecniche adottate dai 4 amici per raggiungere l’agoniato momento di congedo, ma, questa volta, Laura ha un tremendo segreto da confessare che cambierà definitivamente le dinamiche di questa bizzarra famiglia.
Come avrete intuito, Il silenzio di Laura è permeato da un intenso e tormentato rancore familiare che, attraverso i ricordi e le emozioni dei protagonisti, vi trascinerà all’interno del loro claustrofobico rapporto facendovi ulteriormente apprezzare le sfaccettature del genere umano e probabilmente della vostra famiglia.
Martina
Ciascuno dei 4 commensali nasconde paure, amori, bugie ma soprattutto sentimenti di rancore e odio, che legano segretamente i protagonisti de Il silenzio di Laura in un morboso intreccio impossibile da sciogliere.
Laura Maldovana, l’aguzzina della combricola, è una razzista ed eccentrica signora dal carattere forte ed impossibile, coniugata col ricco ed alcolizzato Desmond Clapper; i due, in procinto di partire per l’ennesimo viaggio di piacere, attendono gli ospiti per quella che dovrebbe essere un’allegra rimpatriata. Peter Rice è un editor infelice che è totalmente sottomesso al volere di Laura, così come Clara Hansen, donna fragile ed insicura incapace di opporsi al volere della madre. L’unico che apparentemente sembra contrastare Laura è il suo eccentrico fratello, ma sarà vero o si tratterà dell’ennesima “maschera” indossata da questi assurdi personaggi?
Dopo una pungente accoglienza, i coniugi Clapper accompagnano gli ospiti in un rinomato ristorante di New York, dove avranno luogo interessanti e dolorosi scambi di parole. Fugaci frasi di circostanza alternate a “frecciatine” sono le usuali tecniche adottate dai 4 amici per raggiungere l’agoniato momento di congedo, ma, questa volta, Laura ha un tremendo segreto da confessare che cambierà definitivamente le dinamiche di questa bizzarra famiglia.
Come avrete intuito, Il silenzio di Laura è permeato da un intenso e tormentato rancore familiare che, attraverso i ricordi e le emozioni dei protagonisti, vi trascinerà all’interno del loro claustrofobico rapporto facendovi ulteriormente apprezzare le sfaccettature del genere umano e probabilmente della vostra famiglia.
Martina
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February 12, 2024Cinco personagens formam o elenco: Laura, uma beldade gasta de 55 anos, casada pela 2a vez, filha da viúva empobrecida, Alma; seu marido frouxo e beberrão, Desmond; a filha tímida e extremamente autocrítica de Laura, Clara; o irmão de Laura, Carlos, abertamente homossexual e crítico de música fracassado; e o velho amigo dela, um apagado editor de livros chamado Peter. O arco de suas ações é simples, quase trivial. Alma, enfiada num asilo e negligenciada, morreu na véspera do dia em que Laura e Desmond embarcariam numa viagem para a África. Laura é informada da morte por telefone, mas esconde a informação de todos. Naquela noite, Clara, Carlos e Peter se reúnem com Laura e Desmond para um embaraçoso bon voyage: o romance começa no quarto de hotel onde eles se encontram. Mais tarde, eles percorrem lentamente um corredor, trafegam pelas ruas açoitadas pela chuva e pelo frio e instalam-se num restaurante pomposo, onde sua conversação reflete apenas a mais distorcida superfície de suas paixões e segredos. Sem aviso prévio, tudo atinge uma culminância num grande e conturbado acesso (de chilique) de Laura. Depois que os personagens se separam, Peter recebe a incumbência de levar a notícia da morte de Alma a Carlos (de quem Laura evitou contar durante toda a noite) e ao irmão deles Eugenio (que estava ausente). Peter também é orientado a não dar a Clara essa notícia crucial (não entendi o motivo). Ele avisa a todos e ocorre o funeral de Alma no dia seguinte. Que livro chaaaaaaaato! Laura se acha a rainha do mundo e quer que todos façam sua vontade. Sem clímax, sem falas marcantes, só chatice. Foi sofrido terminar e fiz leitura dinâmica pulando páginas.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 2, 2020
Un romanzo breve, ma conciso, che si svolge in sette "atti", obbligando il lettore a seguire e a percepire ogni singola emozione dei personaggi.
In particolare nella stanza d'albergo, con il primo capitolo, e quando gli invitati si spostano al ristorante per la cena, ci si trova intimamente legati a queste ambientazioni, ed essendo una narrazione incentrata, per ogni atto, in una sola stanza, ci si sente incastrati con loro.
Al centro di questi episodi di vita troviamo l'odio in tantissime sfaccettature diverse: è proprio la cena al ristorante che costituisce un exploit irriverente, dove ognuno perde le staffe a modo proprio, e mostra come è legato all'altro per un particolare legame (di odio), anziché di amore.
La protagonista, Laura, è testimone di una vita sicuramente complicata, ma, allo stesso tempo, ne è anche l'artefice: estroversa, drammatica fino all'eccesso, ed egoista. Laura fa di tutto per mettere a disagio Clara, la figlia timida e servile di cui si è occupata pochissimo, la quale, a sua volta, è da tutta la vita che cerca di ottenere la sua approvazione, ma invano.
Tra uno scenario e l'altro, il lettore comprende quale sia il segreto di Laura, che per tutta la durata del romanzo resta ad aleggiare nell'aria.
L'autrice riesce, con un ritmo formidabile, a fare entrare il lettore a contatto con la psicologia di questi personaggi, permettendogli di vivere persino gli stessi sentimenti che vivono, nello stesso identico momento.
Assolutamente sublime la caratterizzazione psicologica di Laura, sopratutto nella scena finale, dove si entra a contatto con la sua vera essenza, cercando di capire le ragioni della sua segretezza.
Ugualmente, non si può non provare pietà per la povera Clara, continuamente bistrattata dalla madre, addirittura in un'occasione così delicata come il finale.
In particolare nella stanza d'albergo, con il primo capitolo, e quando gli invitati si spostano al ristorante per la cena, ci si trova intimamente legati a queste ambientazioni, ed essendo una narrazione incentrata, per ogni atto, in una sola stanza, ci si sente incastrati con loro.
Al centro di questi episodi di vita troviamo l'odio in tantissime sfaccettature diverse: è proprio la cena al ristorante che costituisce un exploit irriverente, dove ognuno perde le staffe a modo proprio, e mostra come è legato all'altro per un particolare legame (di odio), anziché di amore.
La protagonista, Laura, è testimone di una vita sicuramente complicata, ma, allo stesso tempo, ne è anche l'artefice: estroversa, drammatica fino all'eccesso, ed egoista. Laura fa di tutto per mettere a disagio Clara, la figlia timida e servile di cui si è occupata pochissimo, la quale, a sua volta, è da tutta la vita che cerca di ottenere la sua approvazione, ma invano.
Tra uno scenario e l'altro, il lettore comprende quale sia il segreto di Laura, che per tutta la durata del romanzo resta ad aleggiare nell'aria.
L'autrice riesce, con un ritmo formidabile, a fare entrare il lettore a contatto con la psicologia di questi personaggi, permettendogli di vivere persino gli stessi sentimenti che vivono, nello stesso identico momento.
Assolutamente sublime la caratterizzazione psicologica di Laura, sopratutto nella scena finale, dove si entra a contatto con la sua vera essenza, cercando di capire le ragioni della sua segretezza.
Ugualmente, non si può non provare pietà per la povera Clara, continuamente bistrattata dalla madre, addirittura in un'occasione così delicata come il finale.
October 1, 2019
J'en attendais beaucoup de ce livre, peut-être trop... je me suis laissée porter par les critiques qui parlaient de Paula Fox comme d'une autrice incontournable. Livre conseillé d'ailleurs par Goodreads en faisant une recherche d'auteurs similaires à Siri Hustvedt.
J'ai trouvé que la psychologie des personnages était franche et très intéressante. Mais la structure de la narration sur la première moitié du livre, hachée, qui passe d'un geste à un autre, d'une phrase à une autre... j'ai eu du mal à suivre ce tourbillon qui me donnait la sensation d'être une caméra tournante au milieu de ce huis clos familial. Cet effet ne m'a pas aidée à saisir avec réalisme ce que chacun d'entre eux ressentait, ce qu'il se jouait. En l'écrivant je m'aperçois que l'effet est certainement voulu, mais pour ma part il ne m'a pas aidée à rentrer dans les personnages et à croire en eux. Lorsque la narratrice prend plus de temps sur la seconde partie du roman, on se laisse plus volontiers porter par les ambiances et l'état d'esprit des individus.
Une bonne lecture/ découverte malgré tout qui me portera peut-être à lire un autre ouvrage de l'autrice.
J'ai trouvé que la psychologie des personnages était franche et très intéressante. Mais la structure de la narration sur la première moitié du livre, hachée, qui passe d'un geste à un autre, d'une phrase à une autre... j'ai eu du mal à suivre ce tourbillon qui me donnait la sensation d'être une caméra tournante au milieu de ce huis clos familial. Cet effet ne m'a pas aidée à saisir avec réalisme ce que chacun d'entre eux ressentait, ce qu'il se jouait. En l'écrivant je m'aperçois que l'effet est certainement voulu, mais pour ma part il ne m'a pas aidée à rentrer dans les personnages et à croire en eux. Lorsque la narratrice prend plus de temps sur la seconde partie du roman, on se laisse plus volontiers porter par les ambiances et l'état d'esprit des individus.
Une bonne lecture/ découverte malgré tout qui me portera peut-être à lire un autre ouvrage de l'autrice.
September 19, 2017
4.5 Stars
A couple of years ago I read Desperate Characters – a 1970 novel by the American writer Paula Fox – in which a cat bite sparks a crisis in the lives of a privileged middle-class couple, setting in motion a series of events which threatens to undermine their seemingly harmonious existence. There is a crisis of sorts too in The Widow’s Children, Fox’s later novel of family dysfunction, first published in 1976. This is an acutely observed story of longstanding slights and prejudices, of things left unsaid or buried beneath the social niceties of family gatherings, of trying to live up to the burden of expectations – both those we demand of ourselves and those imposed on us by others. It is an excellent book, one that deserves to be much better-known.
To read my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2017...
A couple of years ago I read Desperate Characters – a 1970 novel by the American writer Paula Fox – in which a cat bite sparks a crisis in the lives of a privileged middle-class couple, setting in motion a series of events which threatens to undermine their seemingly harmonious existence. There is a crisis of sorts too in The Widow’s Children, Fox’s later novel of family dysfunction, first published in 1976. This is an acutely observed story of longstanding slights and prejudices, of things left unsaid or buried beneath the social niceties of family gatherings, of trying to live up to the burden of expectations – both those we demand of ourselves and those imposed on us by others. It is an excellent book, one that deserves to be much better-known.
To read my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2017...
August 30, 2022
Stunning. Beautiful, brutal, the sharp dialogue of an Albee play combined with uniquely perceptive descriptions of the inner worlds and thoughts of the characters. So glad to have discovered Fox's work and that the publishing "re-discovery" will allow others to do so. This (and Poor George and Desperate Characters and The God of Nightmares) reminds this reader of all that can be packed into a short novel when one is in the hands of a writer like Fox.
July 1, 2019
Il talento della scrittrice nello scavare nella psicologia e nei sentimenti dei personaggi è innegabile. Ha costruito dei soggetti assolutamente credibili nei pensieri e negli atteggiamenti.
Per buona parte della lettura ho detestato Laura per la sua eccentricità e per l'insensibilità dimostrata in più di un'occasione. Quando poi ho conosciuto più a fondo le vicende della famiglia Maldonada improvvisamente non ho più sopportato Clara, quella a cui, tutto sommato, è andata meglio di tutti eppure non ha saputo trarre nulla dalla "fortuna" che ha avuto.
Peter, l'amico, mi ha fatto un po' pena per come è capitato in mezzo a questa famiglia disfunzionale e ne ha dovuto in qualche modo dirimere le controversie.
Per buona parte della lettura ho detestato Laura per la sua eccentricità e per l'insensibilità dimostrata in più di un'occasione. Quando poi ho conosciuto più a fondo le vicende della famiglia Maldonada improvvisamente non ho più sopportato Clara, quella a cui, tutto sommato, è andata meglio di tutti eppure non ha saputo trarre nulla dalla "fortuna" che ha avuto.
Peter, l'amico, mi ha fatto un po' pena per come è capitato in mezzo a questa famiglia disfunzionale e ne ha dovuto in qualche modo dirimere le controversie.
November 5, 2025
Having read Fox’s memoir Borrowed Finery just before reading this, I recognized much of Fox’s life story here. It’s a short novel comprising an evening and part of the next day, with 6 characters: Laura and her two brothers; Carla, Laura’s estranged daughter who was raised by Laura’s mother; Desmond, Laura’s second husband; and a family friend Peter who is a somewhat tortured single man, but plays a role here as the intermediary. The story is condensed in time but described in acute detail from the point of view of each character in turn, so fraught with familial tension that I sometimes had to stop reading. I would say it’s a masterpiece, but it was too intense for my full enjoyment. It reminded me of Henry James’s What Maisie Knew, so exquisitely written but at Maisie’s expense.
November 5, 2017
This wasn't an easy read for me, despite the admirable brevity of the book. In fact, had it been longer, i think it might have become impossible to read. It is claustrophobic, tense, laden with grand emotions and unspoken thoughts, yet it works as a sort of a Grand Guignol family drama which takes place during one highly-charged evening. Characters are larger than life, even in their timidity, but in a way that makes so much sense, and the deeper one gets steeped into the strange world of the Maldonada family the more one understands why the book is written as it is, and why it could only have worked structured as it is. Exceptional.
July 23, 2017
A slow moving, character-driven novel. I think it will resonate with anyone who has a strained maternal relationship or anyone who has experienced life revolving around a difficult woman. Laura, the force of the novel, is impossible and so compelling, the others orbit around her and she uses all of her powers to control their trajectories.
January 11, 2019
I love all of Paula Fox's books, most, I believe, very much inspired by her own life, especially her experience with her parents. In this one, the protagonist endures a dinner with the parents who seldom see her and her mother's brother (if I remember correctly) and a few of their friends. The tension throughout the occasion is electric.
March 1, 2019
This book was boring. The characters were all unlikeable and I could not relate to the motivations. I kept expecting to read more about how they had come to be so strange but you only got a few brief morsels of the past that left me wanted to read an entirely different novel. One of Alma's life from her perspective.
February 24, 2015
The Widow’s Children (1976), Paula Fox’s fourth novel of human angst and family dysfunction, is viewed as one of the best novels that’s never been read. To date, my candidate for Best Novel in the English Language has been John Williams’ Stoner; The Widow’s Children is right up there. Perhaps the problem is that when a book is just too good its audience is too narrow. John Williams was just as little-read as Paula Fox, and both have only recently come back to the light.
In only 200 pages, and covering only one day in the life of New York’s Moldonaro clan (family is too strong a word), this novel captures in spare, but unsparing, language the tension between our outward demeanor and our subterranean thoughts, and what can happen when those thoughts break to the surface. This is a bruising tale of family dysfunction, neglect, sibling rivalry, and inexplicable behavior.
The Moldonaros emigrated from Spain to Cuba before the Spanish-American war. After that, the paterfamilias died, they lost their estates and power, and they moved to the U. S. before WWI. The novel is set in an unspecified post-Castro year, probably the late 1950s or early 1960s. The family now consists of grandmother Alma, Alma’s children (Laura with second husband Desmond Clapper; Carlos, unattached and gay; and Eugenio, a travel agent lost in the past); and Clara Hansen, Laura’s daughter by her first husband. These are all normal people: Desmond, like Laura’s first husband, is a hopeless drunk; Carlos is gay, sad, and an idler; Clara, abandoned at birth to live with Alma, is, like many a rejected child, always trying to please Laura--and always failing.
Laura is the explosive center of it all. Carlos captures the extremely temperamental and manipulative Laura well in a burst of exquisite writing. She is described as his
We meet this small group in a chapter titled “Drinks.” They are gathered in Laura and Desmond Clapper’s New York hotel room to celebrate the Clapper’s next-day departure on an extended trip to Africa. Joining them is Peter Rice, Laura’s editor-friend, who specializes in a seagull’s screech to announce his presence. Just before the gathering, Laura receives a phone call--mother Alma has just died in her old folks home. Laura's reaction isn’t grief, nor is it “Gosh, we have to postpone our trip.” It’s to keep the death a secret—-just for the pleasure of possessing something special and, perhaps, springing it at an inopportune time. So she doesn’t share the news with her guests. Instead, they all engage in a cuttingly described ping-pong conversation:
Eventually, with Desmond already well into the bag, and all except Laura clueless about Alma’s passing, they go off to the second chapter, “Restaurant.” At the restaurant there is increasing tension until Laura has an outburst for no apparent reason but prompted by a benign joke from Clara. She flees the scene, walking back to the hotel in the rain, leaving Desmond to think "My life with Laura absolutely exhausts me!" Once Desmond returns to the hotel she tells him about her mother’s death. Then she enlists Peter into informing Carlos and Eugenio, with explicit instructions not to tell Clara, who had been raised by Alma after Laura abandoned her at birth (just as, we learn, Alma had abandoned Laura).
The story is told with frequent references to animals, underscoring the animals that we all are underneath the social veneer. It is a tale that all of us experience in some way—-awkward social gatherings with parents or siblings (the holidays), longstanding hostilities hopefully held at bay, major slights swept under the rug of “family” but waiting for the right time to spring out, the residue of expectations disappointed and opportunities lost, and the chains in which we bind each other by expecting the behaviors of their youth in our adult siblings. Fox captures the last well in a two-sentence summary of the novel:
Yet, in what sounds like a hopelessly sad story, there is emerging hope at the end. What a marvelous book. Not for everyone--incurable optimists need not apply--but a slam-dunk five stars for me.
An aside: Paula Fox, now 91, was born in 1923 to a mother who abandoned her at birth. She is the mother of Linda Carroll, an author and therapist, whom she gave up to adoption. She is the grandmother of Courtney Love.
In only 200 pages, and covering only one day in the life of New York’s Moldonaro clan (family is too strong a word), this novel captures in spare, but unsparing, language the tension between our outward demeanor and our subterranean thoughts, and what can happen when those thoughts break to the surface. This is a bruising tale of family dysfunction, neglect, sibling rivalry, and inexplicable behavior.
The Moldonaros emigrated from Spain to Cuba before the Spanish-American war. After that, the paterfamilias died, they lost their estates and power, and they moved to the U. S. before WWI. The novel is set in an unspecified post-Castro year, probably the late 1950s or early 1960s. The family now consists of grandmother Alma, Alma’s children (Laura with second husband Desmond Clapper; Carlos, unattached and gay; and Eugenio, a travel agent lost in the past); and Clara Hansen, Laura’s daughter by her first husband. These are all normal people: Desmond, like Laura’s first husband, is a hopeless drunk; Carlos is gay, sad, and an idler; Clara, abandoned at birth to live with Alma, is, like many a rejected child, always trying to please Laura--and always failing.
Laura is the explosive center of it all. Carlos captures the extremely temperamental and manipulative Laura well in a burst of exquisite writing. She is described as his
“…violent sister, who might telephone him at any minute and, with her elaborate killer’s manner, in her beautiful deep voice, make some outrageous demand upon him, making clear that she knew not only the open secrets of his life but the hidden ones, knew about his real shiftlessness, his increasing boredom with sexual pursuit, his unappeased sexual longing, his terror of age.”
We meet this small group in a chapter titled “Drinks.” They are gathered in Laura and Desmond Clapper’s New York hotel room to celebrate the Clapper’s next-day departure on an extended trip to Africa. Joining them is Peter Rice, Laura’s editor-friend, who specializes in a seagull’s screech to announce his presence. Just before the gathering, Laura receives a phone call--mother Alma has just died in her old folks home. Laura's reaction isn’t grief, nor is it “Gosh, we have to postpone our trip.” It’s to keep the death a secret—-just for the pleasure of possessing something special and, perhaps, springing it at an inopportune time. So she doesn’t share the news with her guests. Instead, they all engage in a cuttingly described ping-pong conversation:
They had managed to keep things going—the trip, Carlos’s laziness, bird imitations, Clara’s looks—-prodding and pulling words out of themselves as though urging a sluggish beast into its cage, and now it was out, this beast, menacing them with a suddenly awakened appetite. What meat would satisfy it?
Eventually, with Desmond already well into the bag, and all except Laura clueless about Alma’s passing, they go off to the second chapter, “Restaurant.” At the restaurant there is increasing tension until Laura has an outburst for no apparent reason but prompted by a benign joke from Clara. She flees the scene, walking back to the hotel in the rain, leaving Desmond to think "My life with Laura absolutely exhausts me!" Once Desmond returns to the hotel she tells him about her mother’s death. Then she enlists Peter into informing Carlos and Eugenio, with explicit instructions not to tell Clara, who had been raised by Alma after Laura abandoned her at birth (just as, we learn, Alma had abandoned Laura).
The story is told with frequent references to animals, underscoring the animals that we all are underneath the social veneer. It is a tale that all of us experience in some way—-awkward social gatherings with parents or siblings (the holidays), longstanding hostilities hopefully held at bay, major slights swept under the rug of “family” but waiting for the right time to spring out, the residue of expectations disappointed and opportunities lost, and the chains in which we bind each other by expecting the behaviors of their youth in our adult siblings. Fox captures the last well in a two-sentence summary of the novel:
Families hold each other in an iron grip of definition. One must break the grip somehow.
Yet, in what sounds like a hopelessly sad story, there is emerging hope at the end. What a marvelous book. Not for everyone--incurable optimists need not apply--but a slam-dunk five stars for me.
An aside: Paula Fox, now 91, was born in 1923 to a mother who abandoned her at birth. She is the mother of Linda Carroll, an author and therapist, whom she gave up to adoption. She is the grandmother of Courtney Love.
September 6, 2021
Que livro chato! Um encontro que gira em torno do medo q as pessoas têm de uma mulher e que não queriam estar ali. E a tal mulher (Laura) não tem nada de especial, apesar da autora tentar que assim seja.
Cada linha é uma descrição sem fim de sentimentos chata e entediante.
Cada linha é uma descrição sem fim de sentimentos chata e entediante.
December 24, 2025
Probablemente sea una opinión poco popular, pero no me ha gustado nada. No he conseguido conectar con ninguno de los personajes, de hecho me han caído hasta mal. Me ha parecido una novela lenta, rimbombante y petarda. Promete mucho y realmente no pasa nada...
May 5, 2017
Harrowing and engrossing novel about a self doomed family, whose members are unable to break the " iron grip of definition" that fetters them.
June 22, 2017
Dysfunctional family dynamics in a family dominated by an abusive mother. I'm enjoying this; there are relationships beyond the family, between her brothers and her ex husband, that go back years and feel true. The story centers on her daughter, abandoned at birth to be raised by the grandmother, At times I almost feel sympathy for the crazy mother.
But now that I've finished I feel like I've missed something. Maybe it was just because of the rave review in the preface - I liked it but it wasn't that great.
But now that I've finished I feel like I've missed something. Maybe it was just because of the rave review in the preface - I liked it but it wasn't that great.
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