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Every Eye
Isobel English
#UB7862
Hardcover, 152 pages; 2006 (1956)
$13.90
…It is six years since I last saw Cynthia, six years since I cut myself free from the inquisitive disapproval; the light unfriendly laugh that always accompanied her sharpest barbs— the honey and the gall mixed to such a smooth consistency that they were inseparable.
This Cynthia, who walked into then-fourteen- year-old Hatty's life as the rather exciting girlfriend of Hatty's uncle, later became Hatty's aunt—and eventually, in surprising ways, her rival. More-or-less beaten down by her family into a life of sad and dull mediocrity (her uncle counsels giving up a promising career as a pianist in favor of attending secretarial school; her mother discourages her from having the surgery that would correct a lifelong squint), Hatty enters into an affair with a much-older man—an affair encouraged and enabled by Aunt Cynthia. Somewhat miraculously, Hatty later meets and marries a delightful younger man at a point when hopes of true love in her life had long since evaporated. It's on their wedding trip to Ibiza—a destination much trumpeted by Cynthia—that Hatty discovers the truth about her late aunt's machinations. Isobel English's writing is flawless, elegant in its restraint, brilliant in its character development.
(EE)
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