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. A vivid, gripping, emotional, and addictive read, Sudden Rain is also a rare and valuable time capsule: the long-lost, never-before-published manuscript of a much-loved writer embraced by critics and readers alike. Maritta Wolff first blazed into the publishing world in 1941, at the age of twenty-two, with what Sinclair Lewis called "the most important novel of the year," Whistle Stop. Five more vibrant bestsellers followed over the next two decades, but her seventh novel was kept secretly hidden -- in her refrigerator -- for the last thirty years of her life. Now, to the great fortune of readers everywhere, Sudden Rain has come out of the fridge, but it is still gloriously frozen in time, and that is part of its beauty. Set in the fall of 1972, it perfectly captures, with expansive emotion and keen observation, the domestic trends of the late '60s and early '70s, doing for the Vietnam-era middle-class what Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road did for 1950s suburbia. Sudden Rain is a compelling drama and cinematic read that offers great insight into the nature of marriage -- both then and now. The story centers around middle-class couples of three different generations and the ways in which their relationships and home lives are affected by the trends (specifically the rise in divorce and feminism) of the time. In the suburbs around Los Angeles, traditional housewives in their thirties and forties are starting to ask whether they are satisfied by their everyday lives. Meanwhile, at least one young woman in her early twenties feels paralyzed by her options. Tom and Nedith have been married for thirty years, but their union is rooted firmly in the mores of the 1950s: he works hard as an engineer; she stays home; neither is happy. Meanwhile, their son, Pete, has recently split from his wife, Killian, after less than a year of marriage. Their neighbor Cynny sees herself as reasonably happy in her marriage to Jim -- until she has an eye-opening conversation with one of her girlfriends, and begins to stray. Cynny's friend Nancy -- who o looking for fulfillment but stumbles into something so unexpected, it may make everyone in the community reconsider the choices they've made. The novel all takes place in one stormy L.A. weekend, as a literal fog of unrest blows into town and alters these marriages forever. It's a novel that serves as an unusually revealing mirror of its times. All of Wolff's books were praised for her effortless grasp of human nature and her stunning ear for dialogue -- the ways in which people talk to themselves and to each other -- and this book is no different: it offers a pitch-perfect rendition of the speech and social interactions of three different generations coexisting in 1972. As a vivid distillation of its time and place, Wolff's Sudden Rain is a spellbinding achievement and an exciting discovery
this Long-lost Novel Captures The Emotional Rhythms Of Suburban Los Angeles In The Early 1970s As Five Couples Experience The Throes Of Middle-class Disaffection. Due To Unrest, Revelation, And Disaster, All Are Compelled To Reconsider The Choices They've Made In This Riveting And Resonant Novel.
the New York Times -
sudden Rain, Her Seventh Novel, Raises One Overriding Question, And The Answer Is No: It Is Not As Striking As Its Peculiar Provenance. Nor Is It As Vivid Or Verbose As Wolff's Debut Work, Since It Is A Much More Narrow, Embittered Kind Of Fiction. But Her Early Strength Lay Largely In The Immediacy Of Her Dialogue. And sudden Rain Finds That She Is Still, Quite Evisceratingly, In Fighting Trim.
Follows the lives of five disaffected middle-class Los Angeles families in the early 1970s, from a long-time married couple that finds their traditional roles unsatisfying, to an unhappily married woman who stumbles into a fatal accident
