Clair de Lune
A Novel by Jetta Carleton, Harper Perennial, 2012.
The copyright date may be contemporary, but the author died in 1999. When I read that on the back cover, my first thought was "Huh?" Jetta Carleton was involved with books, and wrote only one: The Moonflower Vine, which was a best-seller and was recently put on a list of books that made some people rediscover it. This manuscript was found, given modern editing, and released. The result is a book that feels like it was written only yesterday.
The book, though, takes place just before America's entry to WWII. A young woman is given her first "real" teaching job at a junior college. She's a young woman with her own dreams, although her mother still has specific dreams for her. She's a member of the faculty, although she's closer to the age of her own students.
And therein lies the crux of the novel. She becomes close to a couple of her (male) seminar students, inviting them back to her apartment, socializing with them, exploring the world of ideas culture, and even becoming romantically involved with one of them. Not appropriate, although you can sympathize with her. That does become a problem, though . . .
One of the things I learned in this book: That the tune "Clair de Lune" has lyrics, and is filled with double entendres (one of those "innocent" childhood rhymes that isn't so innocent.)
The copyright date may be contemporary, but the author died in 1999. When I read that on the back cover, my first thought was "Huh?" Jetta Carleton was involved with books, and wrote only one: The Moonflower Vine, which was a best-seller and was recently put on a list of books that made some people rediscover it. This manuscript was found, given modern editing, and released. The result is a book that feels like it was written only yesterday.
The book, though, takes place just before America's entry to WWII. A young woman is given her first "real" teaching job at a junior college. She's a young woman with her own dreams, although her mother still has specific dreams for her. She's a member of the faculty, although she's closer to the age of her own students.
And therein lies the crux of the novel. She becomes close to a couple of her (male) seminar students, inviting them back to her apartment, socializing with them, exploring the world of ideas culture, and even becoming romantically involved with one of them. Not appropriate, although you can sympathize with her. That does become a problem, though . . .
One of the things I learned in this book: That the tune "Clair de Lune" has lyrics, and is filled with double entendres (one of those "innocent" childhood rhymes that isn't so innocent.)