On the back of another Paula Fox novel, The Widow's Children (which is also good), it says she lives in Brooklyn. However I judge the accompanying photograph of her to be from the seventies, so who knows where she lives now. In any case, that sums up what I know about her.
My first taste of Paula Fox was A Servant's Tale, which I read back when North Point Press was still alive and I was reading anything they published. I was at my pre-ex-boyfriend's house for Christmas and it was a very touchy feely enlightened New Englandery kind of experience. For instance, in front of a cozy fire at night we were to share with the others what we were grateful for, all of us, going around the room. Another time the kids were sat down in front of the t.v. to watch a video about AIDS, and told to wear two condoms whenever we had sex. Two! Garrison Keillor was listened to a lot at that house. Also there were all sorts of warm crocheted artifacts everywhere. In fact, I think the stepmother (who gave the appearance of making her own bread and jam, even if she didn't) dressed mainly in warm crocheted artifacts.
Anyway, there were times I needed to get away from all that hands-on tending, and that's when I read A Servant's Tale. It took me about two days, I was that engrossed (and also needing an escape, I imagine). But Desperate Characters is even better than A Servant's Tale. It is structurally nearly perfect, and strange, and simple on the top but very complicated underneath, like some nice dream that begins to go wrong in logical but unpredictable ways.
The one other thing I'll mention about Paula Fox is that she is a changeling. In addition to this nearly perfect book she wrote one of the worst books I've ever read. It was scattered and unfocused, which is strange because Desperate Characters is brilliantly all of a piece. I mean, the (bad) book did not read like her writing at all! I don't get it. But I'll still read (and probably buy) anything she writes.
First page of
Desperate Characters
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