The Curse of the Appropriate Man

This collection of short fiction deals with the struggles between mothers and their wayward daughters, the often preposterous bonds that tie men and women together, and the complex games masters and servants play with one another. Whether describing a mother mired in senile dementia in "Ma," a young girl's loss of innocence with an itinerant knife-sharpener in "Under the House," or a young woman incapable of conventional love in "An Error of Desire," Lynn Freed portrays the absurdity, the delusions, the dramas, and the dignity of her characters' lives.