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Title: Tender, slender
Review: Shirley Hazzard's first novel reads very much like a first novel. She has a fruitful set-up--an Englishwoman, of half-Italian parentage, falls in love with an older and more sophisticated Italian man separated from his wife--, but she cannot figure out what to do with it. The individual scenes in this episodic narrative are sometimes beautifully evocative, but nothing much ever comes of the story. You never feel very much is at stake between the two lovers since their affair does not convince. The whole thing sifts out of your memory almost as soon as you've finished it.
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