| The Hours by Michael Cunningham |
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Imagine writer Virginia Woolf in 1923 attempting to construct her new character,
Mrs. Dalloway, while struggling to hold on to her own tenuous life . . . and imagine
her juxtaposed with a woman in the 1990s, Clarissa Vaughan (who shares a first name with
the fictitious Mrs. Dalloway) tending to her friend Richard, who is stoically yet desperately dying
from AIDS. . . and imagine them juxtaposed with Laura Brown, a young wife and mother who happens to be
reading Mrs. Dalloway while quietly struggling with life in post-World War II California suburbia and
the stultifying mores of American sexuality.
In The Hours, author Michael Cunningham cleverly intertwines these three seemingly disparate characters and their stories. And like the novel Mrs. Dalloway, the events of The Hours occur in a mere day. All three women - Virginia Woolf, Clarissa Vaughn, and Laura Brown - move through this day trying to live its mundane events while grappling with larger issues such as relationships, sexuality, AIDS, despair, and suicide. This novel stands very well on its own merits and writing style. However, it would be even better appreciated after reading Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway because of numerous parallels between the two books. The Hours is shelved on the Library's first floor in the Recreational Reading Collection. Thanks go to to Sharon Green, Reading Coordinator in the Learning Center, for writing this Monthly Book Spotlight.
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