- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd (6 Jun 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0743248090
- ISBN-13: 978-0743468770
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.2 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,342,876 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
In 1972, in the suburbs around L.A., traditional housewives in their 30s and 40s are starting to ask whether they are satisfied by their everyday lives; meanwhile, a young woman in her early 20s feels paralyzed by her options. The story centers around five middle-class, L.A. 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. Maritta Wolff's moving, compelling novel takes place in one stormy L.A. weekend, as a literal fog of unrest blows into town, and alters these marriages forever.
About the Author
Maritta Martin Wolff was born on December 25, 1918 in Grass Lake, Michigan. In 1941 she graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English composition, and that same year, at age 22, her Avery Hopwood Award-winning novel WHISTLE STOP was published by Random House. Between 1941 and 1962 Wolff wrote and published five more novels. Maritta Wolff died July 1, 2002, of lung cancer at home in West Lost Angeles.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In what may be the consummate depiction of the early 1970s, Maritta Wolff recreates southern California suburbia--its attitudes, values, concerns, and goals--or lack of them. Her rapier-sharp satire focuses on the shallow lifestyle, the self-indulgence, the disregard for the wider world and the environment, and the prescribed roles into which both the men and women force themselves. Following several families from three different generations--the twenty-somethings, those in their forties who have young children, and those who are within five or ten years of retirement--she makes the entire period come vibrantly alive, every detail perfectly rendered to create atmosphere and reveal lifestyle and mores.
Her characters range from the college junior who has already filed for divorce after just eight months of marriage (and who is now living with a revolutionary intent on overthrowing the government), to two men nearing sixty who suddenly find the loves of their lives (despite the fact that one or the other of them is married), and a depressed woman whose three children and all their activities cannot fill the void in her life or provide her with a sense of purpose or fulfillment. The characters, while shallow in their values and motivations, are fully drawn, making their complaints and the waste of their lives that much more poignant.
All the action takes place over a long, hot weekend in the summer, the dry air, blistering Santa Ana winds, and potential for forest fires symbolizing of the arid lives of the characters, the passions and emotions by which they live, and the explosive actions which will change all their lives by the end of the weekend. Even in her conclusion the author remains true to life--she does not tie up all the details, and she leaves many questions unanswered. The characters soldier on, dealing with their messes and the damage they inflict.
Drawing little attention to her "writing style," Wolff creates characters who perfectly represent suburban life in the early seventies, every conversation true to life, every detail of behavior consistent with the character, and every flaw of this society and its people revealed for all the world to see. Sudden Rain holds up a mirror, and the reflection is not a pretty sight. n Mary Whipple
Her characters range from the college junior who has already filed for divorce after just eight months of marriage (and who is now living with a revolutionary intent on overthrowing the government), to two men nearing sixty who suddenly find the loves of their lives (despite the fact that one or the other of them is married), and a depressed woman whose three children and all their activities cannot fill the void in her life or provide her with a sense of purpose or fulfillment. The characters, while shallow in their values and motivations, are fully drawn, making their complaints and the waste of their lives that much more poignant.
All the action takes place over a long, hot weekend in the summer, the dry air, blistering Santa Ana winds, and potential for forest fires symbolizing of the arid lives of the characters, the passions and emotions by which they live, and the explosive actions which will change all their lives by the end of the weekend. Even in her conclusion the author remains true to life--she does not tie up all the details, and she leaves many questions unanswered. The characters soldier on, dealing with their messes and the damage they inflict.
Drawing little attention to her "writing style," Wolff creates characters who perfectly represent suburban life in the early seventies, every conversation true to life, every detail of behavior consistent with the character, and every flaw of this society and its people revealed for all the world to see. Sudden Rain holds up a mirror, and the reflection is not a pretty sight. n Mary Whipple
Format:Paperback
According to the blurb on the cover of my copy, this book was written in the 1970s but never published. The manuscript was found after Maritta Wolff's death and has only been published recently.
It is described as a 'riveting, resonant story that captures perfectly the emotional rhythms of suburban Los Angeles in the 60s and early 70s' and this is what appealed to me - sometimes novelists can be the best observers and chroniclers, getting inside our everyday minds in subtle and incisive ways, and so this is what I was hoping for.
Reading 'Sudden Rain' is like being given a guided tour of the lives of five different suburban middle class families, written from the perspective of each of the partners in the marriage. Dissatisfaction and divorce are the main themes.
Wolff's strength is in building the picture through thoroughly describing the mundane details: Nedith, for instance, one of the older wives, and her bedtime routine are detailed down to the very last essential of the nightly application of cold cream. And similar details are to be found on every page.
This depth of focus inevitably leads to a slow read, so if you are quickly bored this book might not be for you.
If however, you enjoy social commentary and social history, this novel has a richness that makes it well worth the read. In an odd way, I found it quite similar to South Riding by Winifred Holtby. Even though the settings are vastly different, the theme of social change and the impact this has on people's behaviour and decisions seems to run through both books.
I'm also an armchair traveller and really enjoyed the foray into 1970s Los Angeles, and would recommend it for this reason too.
Oh, and it completely lived up to my expectations too.
It is described as a 'riveting, resonant story that captures perfectly the emotional rhythms of suburban Los Angeles in the 60s and early 70s' and this is what appealed to me - sometimes novelists can be the best observers and chroniclers, getting inside our everyday minds in subtle and incisive ways, and so this is what I was hoping for.
Reading 'Sudden Rain' is like being given a guided tour of the lives of five different suburban middle class families, written from the perspective of each of the partners in the marriage. Dissatisfaction and divorce are the main themes.
Wolff's strength is in building the picture through thoroughly describing the mundane details: Nedith, for instance, one of the older wives, and her bedtime routine are detailed down to the very last essential of the nightly application of cold cream. And similar details are to be found on every page.
This depth of focus inevitably leads to a slow read, so if you are quickly bored this book might not be for you.
If however, you enjoy social commentary and social history, this novel has a richness that makes it well worth the read. In an odd way, I found it quite similar to South Riding by Winifred Holtby. Even though the settings are vastly different, the theme of social change and the impact this has on people's behaviour and decisions seems to run through both books.
I'm also an armchair traveller and really enjoyed the foray into 1970s Los Angeles, and would recommend it for this reason too.
Oh, and it completely lived up to my expectations too.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
A compulsive page-turner
24 Oct 2006
Format:Paperback
Bought this on the recommendation of my fave brick'n'morter bookseller, who told me "It's about upper middle class people behaving badly in Los Angeles--what's not to like!"
It's about that but it's also about people behaving well. The couples who populate this engaging fast-moving novel are all intertwined--socially, through business, and through family. Over the course of one three-day weekend, we ride along into the crescendos of their lives.
The novel is also an engaging time capsule of life in a particular place at a particular time--1972. The prevalent issues then (many of which are still controversial now), come up in the normal course of the events of the story--feminism, abortion, middle-class anomie, rising divorce rate, changing marital expectations, ecology, war.
A marvelous novel, thoroughly entertaining.
It's about that but it's also about people behaving well. The couples who populate this engaging fast-moving novel are all intertwined--socially, through business, and through family. Over the course of one three-day weekend, we ride along into the crescendos of their lives.
The novel is also an engaging time capsule of life in a particular place at a particular time--1972. The prevalent issues then (many of which are still controversial now), come up in the normal course of the events of the story--feminism, abortion, middle-class anomie, rising divorce rate, changing marital expectations, ecology, war.
A marvelous novel, thoroughly entertaining.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
"We're all on other marriages and divorces now. Isn't it fierce?"
20 Jan 2007
Format:Paperback
In what may be the consummate depiction of the early 1970s, Maritta Wolff recreates Los Angeles suburbia--its attitudes, values, concerns, and goals--or lack of them. Her rapier-sharp satire focuses on the shallow lifestyle, the self-indulgence, the disregard for the wider world and the environment, and the prescribed roles into which both the men and women force themselves. Following the lives of several families from three different generations--the twenty-somethings, those in their forties who have young children, and those who are within five or ten years of retirement--she makes the entire period come vibrantly alive, every detail perfectly rendered to create atmosphere and reveal lifestyle and mores.
Her characters range from the college junior who has already filed for divorce after just eight months of marriage (and who is now living with a revolutionary intent on overthrowing the government), to two men nearing sixty who suddenly find the loves of their lives (despite the fact that one or the other of them is married), and also include a depressed woman whose three children and all their activities cannot fill the void in her life or provide her with a sense of purpose or fulfillment. The characters, while shallow in their values and motivations, are fully drawn, making their complaints and the waste of their lives that much more poignant.
All the action takes place over a long, hot weekend in the summer, the dry air, blistering Santa Ana winds, and potential for forest fires symbolizing the arid lives of the characters, the passions and emotions by which they live, and the explosive actions which will change all their lives by the end of the weekend. Even in her conclusion, however, the author remains true to life--she does not tie up all the details, and she leaves many questions unanswered for the reader to ponder. The characters soldier on, dealing with their messes and the damage they inflict.
Drawing little attention to her "writing style," Wolff creates characters who perfectly represent suburban life in the early seventies, every conversation true to life, every action plausible and consistent with the character, and every flaw of this society and its people revealed for all the world to see. Sudden Rain holds up a mirror, and the reflection is not a pretty sight. n Mary Whipple
Her characters range from the college junior who has already filed for divorce after just eight months of marriage (and who is now living with a revolutionary intent on overthrowing the government), to two men nearing sixty who suddenly find the loves of their lives (despite the fact that one or the other of them is married), and also include a depressed woman whose three children and all their activities cannot fill the void in her life or provide her with a sense of purpose or fulfillment. The characters, while shallow in their values and motivations, are fully drawn, making their complaints and the waste of their lives that much more poignant.
All the action takes place over a long, hot weekend in the summer, the dry air, blistering Santa Ana winds, and potential for forest fires symbolizing the arid lives of the characters, the passions and emotions by which they live, and the explosive actions which will change all their lives by the end of the weekend. Even in her conclusion, however, the author remains true to life--she does not tie up all the details, and she leaves many questions unanswered for the reader to ponder. The characters soldier on, dealing with their messes and the damage they inflict.
Drawing little attention to her "writing style," Wolff creates characters who perfectly represent suburban life in the early seventies, every conversation true to life, every action plausible and consistent with the character, and every flaw of this society and its people revealed for all the world to see. Sudden Rain holds up a mirror, and the reflection is not a pretty sight. n Mary Whipple
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful
SUPERB LISTENING !
13 Jun 2005
Format:Audio CD
The reading world was electrified almost 70 years ago by Maritta Wolff's first novel, Whistle Stop. She was a young woman only 22 years old, and she followed that auspicious debut with a half dozen more exemplary works.
Today, readers are being reintroduced to Wolff's work through her seventh novel, Sudden Rain, which has been hidden for some 30 years. In order to appreciate it fully, flash back, if you will, to the way our country was in the 1970s. Remember the mores and cultural values - the beginnings of women's search for identity, the escalating divorce rate - and all that we once were.
Wolff incisively recreates this time by incisively examining the lives of Southern California families and the issues that are fracturing their cohesiveness. The author wisely limits her time frame to a long weekend, thus making even more pronounced the factors impacting familial relationships.
Voice performer Barbara Rosenblat gives a stunning reading to this sometimes devastating, always riveting chronicle. The winner of 13 Audiofile Earphone Awards, Rosenblat is almost chameleon-like as she gracefully inhabits differing personas.
Superb listening entertainment!
- Gail Cooke
Today, readers are being reintroduced to Wolff's work through her seventh novel, Sudden Rain, which has been hidden for some 30 years. In order to appreciate it fully, flash back, if you will, to the way our country was in the 1970s. Remember the mores and cultural values - the beginnings of women's search for identity, the escalating divorce rate - and all that we once were.
Wolff incisively recreates this time by incisively examining the lives of Southern California families and the issues that are fracturing their cohesiveness. The author wisely limits her time frame to a long weekend, thus making even more pronounced the factors impacting familial relationships.
Voice performer Barbara Rosenblat gives a stunning reading to this sometimes devastating, always riveting chronicle. The winner of 13 Audiofile Earphone Awards, Rosenblat is almost chameleon-like as she gracefully inhabits differing personas.
Superb listening entertainment!
- Gail Cooke
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