Synopses & Reviews
From a Connecticut sanitarium, 24-year-old Betsy Scott tells her doctor a story about the destructive secrets in an outwardly successful family. Since You Askis about the origins of sexual compulsion, and the way in which one young woman tries to overcome it. Born on the island of Antigua, Betsy and her brothers -- the drug-addicted Raymond and the cool, detached Eric -- are relocated to Manhattan. There, Betsy begins a series of secret affairs that take her into increasingly dark situations.
Confusing love and sex, desire and fear, Betsy grows alienated, confused, and desperate. Finally, in an affair with a friend of her parents, joining her brother in his addictions, Betsy is forced to confront her familys secrets. Working with her doctor, her visiting family, and other patients in the hospital, Betsy faces truths about herself and her family that enable her to move beyond them and into a new life.
Since You Askis a work about identity and sanity: the defining of boundaries and of self. Since You Askis about family dynamics, the denial of parents, the protection of one child over another, and the difficulty in seeing what one does not want to see.
Review
"Louise Wareham's keyed-down style amplifies the threat in the sexual terrain her narrator travels. She conveys the disequilibrium a young woman sustains in a run of soul-honing liaisons. 'He saw I had been through something. And it was something that would serve him' -- that the young narrator sees this and LIKES this in a man is the kind of charged and startling observation that powers this striking novel."
-- Amy Hempel,author of Reasons to Live
Review
"The truly important novel, as Tolstoi so passionately averred, is the adventure of a question; and the question, most often, is unhappiness. Ranging inward to a psyche's unsettled relation to itself, and out into the wilderness of family and love, Louise Wareham's Since You Askis a sustained and sustaining adventure, passionate as Tolstoi would approve. Reading this novel, I saw the substance (and substances) of unhappiness transformed into something even brighter than courage. This is a splendid debut."
-- Donald Revell,author of Arcady
Synopsis
--Winner of the James Jones Literary Society First Novel Award
"Wareham's simple, steady prose and aversion to glass-shattering drama elevate a potential cliche into unsettling intensity." --Entertainment Weekly
From a Connecticut sanitarium, 24-year-old Betsy Scott tells her doctor a story about the destructive secrets in an outwardly successful family. A series of affairs take her into increasingly dark situations, from private-school Manhattan, to the outskirts of Queens, the downtown loft of a broker, the suburban house of a doctor in Scarsdale. Since You Ask is about the origins of sexual compulsion, and one young woman's attempts to be free.
Synopsis
From a Connecticut sanitarium, 24-year-old Betsy Scott tells her doctor a story about the destructive secrets in an outwardly successful family. Confusing love and sex, desire and fear, Betsy grows alienated, confused and desperate. She finally faces truths about herself and her family that enable her to move beyond them and into a new life.
Since You Ask is about the origins of sexual compulsion, and the ways in which one young woman tries to overcome it.
Louise Wareham grew up in Manhattan and graduated from Columbia University. She has worked as a reporter in New York City, Oxford, Mississippi and New Zealand. Since You Ask was the winner of the James Jones Literary Society First Novel Award.
Synopsis
Winner of a James Jones Literary Society First Novel Award.
About the Author
Louise Wareham grew up in Manhattan and graduated from Columbia University. She has worked as a reporter in New York City, Oxford, Mississippi and New Zealand. Since You Ask was the winner of the James Jones Literary Society First Novel Award. Wareham lives in New York City.