{"product_id":"basic-black-with-pearls-isbn-9781681372167","title":"Basic Black With Pearls","description":"\u003cb\u003eA brilliant, lost feminist classic that is equal parts domestic drama and international intrigue.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShirley and Coenraad’s affair has been going on for decades, but her longing for him is as desperate as ever. She is a Toronto housewife; he works for an international organization known only as the Agency. Their rendezvous take place in Tangier, in Hong Kong, in Rome and are arranged by an intricate code based on notes slipped into issues of \u003ci\u003eNational Geographic\u003c\/i\u003e. He recognizes her by her costume: a respectable black dress and string of pearls; his appearance, however, is changeable. But something has happened, the code has been discovered, and Coenraad sends Shirley (who prefers to be known as “Lola Montez”) to Toronto, the last place she wants to go. There the trail leads her through the sites of her impoverished immigrant childhood and sends her, finally, to her own house, where she discards her pearls and trades in her basic black for a dress of vibrant multicolored silk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHelen Weinzweig published her first novel when she was fifty-eight. \u003ci\u003eBasic Black with Pearls\u003c\/i\u003e, her second, won the Toronto Book Award and has since come to be recognized as a feminist landmark. Here Weinzweig imbues the formal inventiveness of the nouveau roman with psychological poignancy and surprising humor to tell a story of simultaneous dissolution and discovery.\"As  dazzlingly splintered and disorienting as a hall of mirrors, this     marvelously inventive sleight-of-pen fantasy may (or may not)  represent    the jagged self-image of a middle-aged Canadian  housewife....heavy on scenes  from a rotten childhood  and   lightly dipped in madness—all of it  delivered with spotlight-sharp    images and iron-grey wit. Glittering,  uncomfortable, one-of-a-kind    fiction.\" —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Celebrated in Canada as a feminist classic, Weinzweig’s searing 1980 novel captures a woman’s awakening to her lover’s exploitation….Weinzweig’s prose style is sharp, particularly her dialogue: strange and surprising, it knocks every character interaction askew.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Weinzweig’s  absurdist take on the existential novel anchored by female experience  should be required reading.” —Emily M. Keeler, \u003ci\u003eNational Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Helen  Weinzweig is a crafty  writer, with a sure sense of timing;  when  the  narrator finally manages  to turn her back on her nightmares  and  pipe  dreams, it is a happy  ending that rings true.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Helen  Weinzweig’s voice is original, her language startling and   graceful,  and the story she tells is as moving as a second chance. \u003ci\u003eBasic Black with Pearls\u003c\/i\u003e is a portrait of madness and delight—sensitive, funny and unique.”—Alice Hoffman\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eBasic Black with Pearls\u003c\/i\u003e is certainly a text worthy of a   revisit, its theme of the danger of a  limited life sadly as blisteringly   significant as it was 35 years  ago. The novel offers little  resolution,  and even less clarity, making  it an all the more authentic  commentary  on the trappings of domestic,  suburban life. The reader is  left  uncomfortable, disturbed and as  lost as Shirley is—which is,  perhaps,  the most potent way Weinzweig  could deliver her feminist  message.\" —Stacey May\u003cb\u003eHelen Weinzweig\u003c\/b\u003e (1915–2010) was born Helen Tenenbaum in Radom, Poland, and emigrated with her mother to Toronto when she was nine. As a teenager, she spent two years in an Ontario sanatorium recovering from tuberculosis; asked about the experience, she later recalled, “I read myself silly for two years.” In 1940, Helen married the Canadian composer John Weinzweig and for the next three decades dedicated herself to promoting his career while raising their two sons and organizing and working at a cooperative nursery school in Toronto. In 1968, her first short story, “Surprise!,” was published in \u003ci\u003eCanadian Forum\u003c\/i\u003e; no story or novel she wrote was ever rejected by a publisher. Her first novel, \u003ci\u003ePassing Ceremony\u003c\/i\u003e, was published in 1973, followed by \u003ci\u003eBasic Black with Pearls\u003c\/i\u003e in 1980, which won the City of Toronto Book Award. A short-story collection, \u003ci\u003eA View from the Roof\u003c\/i\u003e (1989), was nominated for the Governor General’s Award. A founding member of the Writers’ Union of Canada, Weinzweig also wrote stage and radio plays and taught at writers’ workshops in her later years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSarah Weinman\u003c\/b\u003e is the editor of \u003ci\u003eWomen Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s \u0026amp; 50s\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eTroubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense\u003c\/i\u003e and the author of the forthcoming nonfiction book \u003ci\u003eThe Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World\u003c\/i\u003e. Weinman’s work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e, and other publications. She lives in New York City.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301931962597,"sku":"NP9781681372167","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681372167.jpg?v=1767722179","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/basic-black-with-pearls-isbn-9781681372167","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}