Sudden Rain: A Novel - Softcover

Wolff, Maritta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743254856 ISBN 13: 9780743254854

Publisher: Scribner, 2006

Synopsis

A vivid, gripping, emotional, and addictive read, Sudden Rain is also a rare and valuable portrait of an era: the long-lost final manuscript of Maritta Wolff—the author who, at the age of twenty-two, published what Sinclair Lewis deemed "the most important novel of the year," Whistle Stop (1941).

Hailed by Entertainment Weekly as "the Nixon-era precursor to Tom Perrotta's acclaimed novel, Little Children" this is a compelling drama that offers great insight into the nature of marriage -- both then and now.

Now that Sudden Rain has come out of its hiding place -- in Wolff's refrigerator, found after her death -- it remains gloriously frozen in time. Set in the fall of 1972, the novel perfectly captures, with expansive emotion and cinematic detail, the domestic trends of three generations of middle-class couples living in suburban Los Angeles. A brilliant portrait of its burgeoning era, Sudden Rain also offers striking cultural commentary on our everyday notions of love and marriage; individuality, equality, and community; and the promise and pursuit of the American Dream.

About this title

About the Author:

Maritta Wolff was born in 1918 in Michigan. Whistle Stop, her first novel, won the Avery Hopwood Award in 1940. A runaway bestseller, the book was also printed as a special Armed Forces edition for American troops during World War II. Whistle Stop was made into a feature film in 1946, starring Ava Gardner. In the next two decades, Ms. Wolff authored more than five novels, but she hid her final, unpublished manuscript in her refrigerator until her death in 2002. Rediscovered, that novel, Sudden Rain, is available from Scribner.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter One

Pete and Killian were divorced on a Thursday afternoon early in November. It was an unremarkable enough day on the face of it. The freeways, the vital circulatory system that made it all possible, were clear and streaming throughout the urban sprawl. The beaches were overcast, with sunshine in the mountains and upper deserts. The temperature registered seventy-seven degrees at the Civic Center, and there was smog in the basin.

The big court building beneath the common pall of haze generated its own temperature of course and, for that matter, its own peculiar climate. As it happened, Cynny Holman was there that same Thursday afternoon, engaged upon a similar though unrelated matter. While Killian was making her way up through the subterranean parking levels, Cynny was already in the courtroom, one of a number of identical wood-paneled boxes which lined the corridors of the building, floor upon floor.

The court was momentarily quiet except for the surreptitious rustle of a newspaper from somewhere among the spectators. The judge coughed softly and turned his chair on the swivel, tilting it a little in order to rest his back.

"You say he was frequently absent from home for several days at a time?"

Cynny was in the witness chair on his right, her hands folded over her purse. She was feeling more nervous than she had expected and kept her eyes fixed upon the well-shaven face above the black robe, avoiding the rows of spectators below. Most of all, she did not want to look at Janet in her chic black-and-white dress, seated erect and alert between the lawyers at the counsel table in front of the bench.

"Yes, that's correct," Cynny said. "It was very upsetting to Mrs. Anderson, naturally. And very difficult and embarrassing for her to try to carry on their normal social life. I remember one occasion, my husband and I attended a dinner party at their home and Mr. Anderson simply didn't appear at all. Mrs. Anderson held up dinner as long as she could, she obviously was upset and under great strain. Finally she made some very feeble sort of explanation that she had reached him by phone and he was detained on business, and she served without him. All through dinner she seemed to be trying not to burst into tears."

Someone departed through the doors at the rear, and there was the sudden sound of intermingled voices and footsteps from the corridor outside, a brief thrust of life into the air-conditioned insularity of the courtroom. The doors swung shut again, and the room hushed. Among the rows of spectators (most of whom were pairs of women bound on a similar errand), a woman murmured to her attorney, and the bailiff stared at her warningly.

"And on occasions when he did appear with her at social gatherings, what was Mr. Anderson's behavior toward his wife?" the judge asked, teetering his chair comfortably.

Cynny looked into his plump face and wondered if this man really could have the least possible interest in learning that. It seemed more likely that through the years he had trained himself not to listen to a single word of this, one more dreary recital of the same clichés and half-truths that he must hear repeated every day that he sat on this bench.

"He behaved very badly," she said in her clear, unhurried voice. "It was really terribly embarrassing. Either he would make a point of ignoring Mrs. Anderson in a cruel, obvious way, or he would say the most cutting and unkind things to her in a humorous -- well, in the guise of humor but it wasn't in the least funny. His attitude in every way, he seemed to be constantly belittling her."

"Belittling," the judge murmured. "Yes."

Have I said the magic word, Cynny wondered. And within her mind the stolid man on the bench was transformed into an IBM card-sorting machine, chastely draped in a black robe and sifting through punch cards with tremendous speed and efficiency for the right combination of clichés to fit the formula. What could the formula be, three cruels plus two tearses, four humiliatings, and one belittle, all equal to one blow struck before witnesses? All the cards flashing back and forth until finally, triumphantly, the last card fell into the last slot, bingo, decree granted! Cynny studied the handles of her black leather purse to refocus.

"I recall one very typical incident that happened at a cocktail party last summer," she said. "Janet, Mrs. Anderson, was standing with four or five other people, she was telling a story, just something amusing that had happened to her that day. She tells such stories very well, she's very witty and entertaining. Mr. Anderson came up behind her all at once while she was talking, she had no idea that he was there. And he began to -- well, to mimic her, a sort of pantomime without any sound, very exaggerated and terribly unkind, waving his hands and tipping his head from side to side, raising and lowering his eyebrows, pretending to be talking very rapidly. Mrs. Anderson finally sensed that something was wrong. She stopped and turned round. Mr. Anderson laughed then in a very sarcastic way and walked off. There were things like that that were very humiliating for her."

Poor Fred, Cynny thought with faint disgust, what a shabby story to repeat to anyone. I like Fred Anderson, I always have. In many ways, he is a much kinder human being than Janet is.

The judge turned back to his desk suddenly, stacking together several papers with an air of finality. "I assume this had a detrimental effect upon Mrs. Anderson's health," he said neutrally. "She cried a great deal and -- "

"Oh, yes," Cynny rushed, with the guilty feeling that she had been cued back to her lines. She was nervous no longer, only a little tired now, the beginnings of a headache behind her eyes, and anxious to be done.

"Mrs. Anderson lost a great deal of weight, she was under a doctor's care. I remember one particular occasion when she telephoned me early this fall, it was the night before her son's birthday actually. Both children were arriving from school the next day, and Mr. Anderson hadn't come home. She was worn out and really quite hysterical. It was very late but I reached her doctor finally, and he came over and gave her sedatives so that she was able to sleep. I would say all this had a very detrimental effect upon her health."

"Yes," the judge murmured. And then he added, with a glance at the counsel table, "If there are no questions, you may step down, Mrs. Holman."

"Thank you."

"Thank you, Mrs. Holman."

The uniformed bailiff opened the little swinging gate, and Cynny descended the steps. The younger of Janet's pair of lawyers was on his feet, pulling out the chair for her at the counsel table, and she whispered her thanks, smiling. As she sat down, Janet was just rising in answer to her own summons to the witness stand. The two women exchanged swift looks of commiseration and encouragement. Cynny settled herself in the chair, relieved to be, once more, rejoined with the anonymous aggregate of spectators in the courtroom.

Janet was sworn in and turned expectantly toward the judge, composed and elegant. Cynny listened only long enough to note that Janet was carrying it all off with great style, just the proper mixture of indignation, wry humor, hurt pride, and grief. And then, with a little twinge of distaste, Cynny closed her ears. She sat erect and motionless, hands folded, a small, slim woman in a tweed suit, hatless, smooth, dark hair and a quiet face with traces of humor at the mouth and eyes.

For a time, she watched the court stenographer, a young woman with glasses and elaborately coiffed blond hair, whose fingers flew over her silent little machine. And then her gaze wandered back to the judge in his black robe, seated behind his high desk flanked on either side by the American and California State flags, hanging limp. Had he indeed mastered the trick of listening with one ear so that his mind now roamed over golf scores and stock quotations? Did he long for nothing more complicated at this moment than an Alka-Seltzer and an unhurried trip to the bathroom, or did he ever fall prey to flashes of human curiosity, the nagging desire to cut through all the idiotic verbiage and learn what actually had happened between Fred and Janet or any of the countless other Freds and Janets who appeared before him? How absurd and ridiculous it really was, she thought. Why was it not possible to come here and tell the simple truth of the matter? The simple, unextraordinary truth, that Fred and Janet had -- what? She puzzled over it briefly. Had outlived their period of strong sexual attraction, she supposed, as most married couples did, had substituted other shared interests for it, primarily the rearing of their children. But years pass and children grow older. Married people live separate enough lives at best these days, the points of real contact can become fewer and fewer. If people have not developed a strong need for each other somewhere along the line, what is there finally left to hold them together?

And once that point was reached, she thought wryly, it all became a matter of time and opportunity and individual temperament, didn't it? After all, there were always new sexual attractions, and people never outlive their need to feel important, to love and be loved. Either they limped along together, taking out on each other their resentments at their deprivation, or they found opportunities to satisfy their needs elsewhere, through lovers, children, friends. In this case, it was Fred who, a year or so ago, started an affair with a girl from his office who was fifteen years younger than Janet, a divorcée with two young children. And now they were all here today, primarily because Fred had decided that it was worth the property settlement to him to obtain the divorce and marry this girl. And worth a certain extra generosity in the settlement agreement if Janet would refrain from bringing up her name in court. And there it was. No one's fault really, not Fred's, not Janet's, just the...

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0743254856
• ISBN 13: 9780743254854
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448