and a Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award. She has taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, New York University, Columbia University, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her first published story appeared when she was thirty-six, and her first novel eight years later. Her many stories and novels have drawn critical praise for illuminating the dark interiors of the American home. She lives in New York City.
Wolitzer's newest book is Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories.
At the Guardian she tagged ten top novels and stories of the 1970s, including:
Final Payments by Mary Gordon (1978)Read about the other entries on the list.
When Isabel Moore’s demanding and devoutly Catholic father dies after a series of strokes, she’s released from caring for him into theterrifying freedom of independence. Isabel was 19 when she first became his carer after her mother’s death, and now she’s an unworldly 30. Two female friends offer advice and support, and two men become her lovers. Isabel, who struggles with the meaning of Christian love, has to choose between the pleasures of an unfettered life and doing penance for an act that contributed to her father’s fatal illness. Final Payments was Mary Gordon’s debut novel, and it is remarkably insightful and accomplished.
--Marshal Zeringue
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