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Title: Masterpiece
Review: 549 pages of misery. Reminded me much of Ken Rouch's painful movie "Ladybird, Ladybird". Depressing to read, especially when I thought I had figured out, about 100 pages before the end, what was going to happen. But the end, when it came, took me completely off guard, made me want to weep. Which says an awful lot about Arnow"s writing capabilities. You never saw her writing. No overblown metaphors or similes. Just a bleak portrait of one hillbilly woman who could not change or learn from her mistakes. And pays, oh so dearly. And yet she paints her characters with such vivid brush strokes that they leap off the page and into my thoughts in bed. A book not easily forgotten . Yet not remembered with ease either. What a tragic figure is Gertie Nevels.
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