Handsome Women - Hardcover

Women absorbed in the armed forces, in this case two sisters whose lives are shaped by the evolving careers of their husbands, provide the subject of this uneven novel. Born into a military family, Louise and Marynell dream of West Point weddings. Louise, serious and naive, lands the best catch at the Point, marries early and spends years in wifely devotion and sexual subjugation to her rising-star husband, who eventually becomes a general and superintendent of the Point. For the beautiful Marynell, the dream of a crossed-sabres wedding does not materialize. Although she marries an officer, he is a widower whose ambitions, she is disconcerted to discover, lie outside the military. Wall ( Love and Duty ) follows the sisters through the dislocations of military postings, wartime separations that force them into constrained existences, to their children and their friends, many of whom are involved in anti-Vietnam causes. Although soapy at times, at its best this bulky novel possesses an entertaining immediacy.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Vivacious Marynell Rodgers cannot comprehend how her shy, younger sister Louise has managed to attract and marry Franklin Cravens--West Point's top graduate of the Class of 1938. Daughters of an Army medical doctor, Louise and Marynell have grown up on Army bases and never entertained the thought of any other kind of life. After being badly hurt by a man, Marynell eventually marries a gentle, widowed Army captain, and the two sisters settle down to raise their respective families. Through the turmoil of three wars the bonds between the women strengthen, although there are moments of anger, jealousy, and misunderstanding. This is a well-told tale of an extended military family, with finely drawn characters and plausible situations. Recommended as diverting reading.
- Maria A. Perez-Stable, Western Michigan Univ. Libs., Kalamazoo
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.