{"id":623,"date":"2018-12-31T13:07:23","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=623"},"modified":"2018-12-31T13:07:23","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:07:23","slug":"lone-star-book-reviewsby-michelle-newby-nbcccontributing-editor-63","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=623","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book ReviewsBy Michelle Newby, NBCCContributing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Michelle Newby<\/span> is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Kirkus, <\/span>freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com, and a moderator at the 20th annual Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, High Country News, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho River Review, Monkeybicycle, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, <\/span>and The Collagist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/span>LITERARY FICTION<\/p>\n

Yvonne Georgina Puig<\/span><\/p>\n

A Wife of Noble Character<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Henry Holt<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-627-79555-5 (also available as an ebook, an audio book, and on Audible), 320 pgs., $27.00<\/p>\n

August 2, 2016<\/p>\n

Beautiful and pedigreed Vivienne Cally finds herself thirty years old, <\/span>still living with her spiteful aunt, and working in a boutique for little more than minimum wage. Born to an oil fortune, Vivienne was orphaned as a very young child, and whatever money remains is controlled by her aunt, who has stipulated that Vivienne won\u2019t see a dime unless she marries well.<\/p>\n

Future architect Preston Duffin is drawn to Vivienne, but has neither money nor pedigree. Preston, a scholarship student living in a garage apartment, hangs on the periphery of Vivienne\u2019s privileged crowd, attempting to protect his ego by disdaining his friends\u2019 values with lofty philosophy.<\/p>\n

Yvonne Georgina Puig\u2019s<\/span> debut novel A Wife of Noble Character<\/span><\/a><\/span> is inspired by Edith Wharton\u2019s<\/span> The House of Mirth.<\/span> Puig updates the story, setting it amid Houston\u2019s oil-money elite. It\u2019s a charming and engaging story, but the views of women and marriage don\u2019t mesh with the modern milieu, resulting in a psychological pastiche, inducing a time-warp effect.<\/p>\n

The narrative alternates between the very different perspectives of Vivienne and Preston. They are sympathetic though frustrating characters whose complexity Puig develops deftly and steadily. Vivienne \u201cdesire[s] to exceed the expectations of her world and [simultaneously] not to care about those expectations at all.\u201d She has many more options than Wharton\u2019s Lily Bart could have conceived of, but she\u2019s paralyzed by lack of imagination and the social mores imposed on her. Whenever Vivienne breaks with convention and acts upon her personal needs or wants, she is punished.<\/p>\n

In the beginning, Preston views Vivienne as a public utility. \u201cWasn\u2019t it her job, in a way,\u201d he muses, \u201cto adapt to the various scenarios life presented and, by her loveliness, make those scenarios pleasant for the other people involved?\u201d He wants what he presumes he cannot have, and he, too, punishes Vivienne with assumptions born of his own insecurities and envy.<\/p>\n

A Wife of Noble Character<\/span> features an engaging cast of supporting characters who run the gamut from true-blue to dangerous, some of whom are types Texans will recognize. Texans will also enjoy the portrait of Houston, from Montrose and Westheimer, to Memorial Park and Buffalo Bayou.<\/p>\n

Puig offers small, delightful turns of phrase: grackles who \u201ccurse\u201d and toads \u201cholding a celebratory concert\u201d in honor of humidity, that \u201cthick and insolent thing.\u201d She indulges in a little purple prose, though infrequently: \u201c[Vivienne] coalesced with her environment because, by her grace, without knowing it, she coalesced with every environment and improved each, a vivid blossom on a dark bough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Puig\u2019s imagery can be striking, as when Preston examines limestone \u201ctrac[ing] the ancient shells, pok[ing] his pinky into the tiny caves carved by some vanished immensity.\u201d It can be cozy: Preston\u2019s garage apartment is covered by ivy \u201cforming a sort of structural shawl, softening the corners.\u201d Puig is also frequently funny, referring to Preston\u2019s \u201cgraduate school apartment from which his income had yet to graduate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vivienne makes a friend in Paris who tells her, \u201cIf you\u2019re born into a world where you don\u2019t belong, you don\u2019t have a choice. You have to find a way out.\u201d A Wife of Noble Character<\/span> is the story of Vivienne finding her way out, and the serendipitous conclusion is surprisingly satisfying.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Newby is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Kirkus, freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com, and a moderator at the 20th annual Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, High Country News, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}