Ohio Angels
By Harriet Scott Chessman
(Seven Stories Press, Hardcover, 9781583225196, 192pp.)
Publication Date: October 1, 2002
Categories: Literary
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Harriet Scott Chessman’s Ohio Angels is an intimate and a lyrical story about friendship and family struggles. Hallie, a painter who now lives in Brooklyn, returns to her family home in Ohio, where she unearths a secret about her parents. Her discovery sheds light on her mother’s depression, which shadowed her own childhood, and helps her understand her own inability to have children. In her hometown, Hallie reconnects with a beloved childhood friend, Rose, who is now a writer and pregnant with her third child.
Chessman beautifully evokes the childhood memories of the two friends, illuminating their very different lives. As in Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper, Chessman’s compassionate and perceptive gaze reveals an entire new world for us—one that is subtle, alive, and deeply honest.
HARRIET SCOTT CHESSMAN is the author of the acclaimed novels Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper and Ohio Angels, as well as The Public Is Invited to Dance, a book about Gertrude Stein. Formerly associate professor of English at Yale University, she has also taught literature and writing at Bread Loaf School of English and at Wesleyan University, and has published several essays on modern literature. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.
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