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Pretty Leslie: A Novel
A “jolting, disturbing” novel from “a writer of the first rank,” about a midcentury housewife’s secret sexual drives ( The New York Times ).
Beautiful, intelligent, and charming, Leslie Daniels is the wife of a successful Illinois physician. To her friends and family, she appears to be happily living the American dream. But there is another side to Leslie, one propelled by lust and unsettling impulses that run completely counter to her comfortable midwestern routine.
So far, Leslie has managed to keep her unwholesome appetites in check, but when her husband travels out of town to attend a medical conference, she takes the opportunity to commit her first act of adultery. What ensues is a stunning plunge into the depths of desire and despair as Leslie realizes that, once freed from the boundaries of convention, her urges can never again be contained or satisfied.
Hailed by the New York Times as a “novel of unusual power” about “a spiritual sister to Dostoevsky’s ‘underground man,’ ” Pretty Leslie is a testament to the astonishing powers of R. V. Cassill’s imagination. It is also, from first page to last, a thrilling, unrelenting, and absolutely unforgettable sexual drama.
Beautiful, intelligent, and charming, Leslie Daniels is the wife of a successful Illinois physician. To her friends and family, she appears to be happily living the American dream. But there is another side to Leslie, one propelled by lust and unsettling impulses that run completely counter to her comfortable midwestern routine.
So far, Leslie has managed to keep her unwholesome appetites in check, but when her husband travels out of town to attend a medical conference, she takes the opportunity to commit her first act of adultery. What ensues is a stunning plunge into the depths of desire and despair as Leslie realizes that, once freed from the boundaries of convention, her urges can never again be contained or satisfied.
Hailed by the New York Times as a “novel of unusual power” about “a spiritual sister to Dostoevsky’s ‘underground man,’ ” Pretty Leslie is a testament to the astonishing powers of R. V. Cassill’s imagination. It is also, from first page to last, a thrilling, unrelenting, and absolutely unforgettable sexual drama.
344 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 16, 2014
13 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
R.V. Cassill
57 books7 followersRonald Verlin Cassill, Professor of English at Brown University, was a novelist and anthologist.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 18, 2025
Two and a half very generous stars...
This was a very hard book to read for me. Once I buy a book and start to read I really hate to put it up until I have finished it...I wanted to put down this book before halfway.
Long run on sentences conveying multiple ideas were hard to follow at times. Often I would read a portion/pages and then realize that I had no idea what I had just read and would have To go back and reread that portion.
The book is about a married couple set in the 1950's and comes with the attitudes and slang of that time period. A young Doctor trying to establish his practice in a new town and his young, attractive flawed/immature wife Leslie. The couple pretends that their relationship is okay but the Doctor is really focused on his practice while his wife is more concerned with more material things and her desires. To read this book after the Black Lives Matter and the Me Too movements seems almost a betrayal. At best this is an okay book but much/most of the time I was "at war" with what was written. Beware the "n" word is used two or three times and the 1950's attitude towards women and sex are strikingly discordant now.
This was a very hard book to read for me. Once I buy a book and start to read I really hate to put it up until I have finished it...I wanted to put down this book before halfway.
Long run on sentences conveying multiple ideas were hard to follow at times. Often I would read a portion/pages and then realize that I had no idea what I had just read and would have To go back and reread that portion.
The book is about a married couple set in the 1950's and comes with the attitudes and slang of that time period. A young Doctor trying to establish his practice in a new town and his young, attractive flawed/immature wife Leslie. The couple pretends that their relationship is okay but the Doctor is really focused on his practice while his wife is more concerned with more material things and her desires. To read this book after the Black Lives Matter and the Me Too movements seems almost a betrayal. At best this is an okay book but much/most of the time I was "at war" with what was written. Beware the "n" word is used two or three times and the 1950's attitude towards women and sex are strikingly discordant now.
Displaying 1 of 1 review