A Disquieting month!!! A Pair of Poison Pen Puzzles! Born Katherine Ursula Towle, she married at a young age, moving to Greenwich Village with her husband. Her book draws on her own experience of the break-up of her marriage and it shines a bright light on the morals and mores of the time whilst exploring the lives of woman in the early 20th century. And both profess to believe in freedom, and love outside of marriage. The marriage collapses and Patricia finds herself to be an ex-wife.
The women visit bars, have liaisons with men, hang out at parties and continue to work hard; Patricia manages to carve out quite a career in the fashion advertising industry. There are affairs; and all the time Peter is pushing for a divorce while Patricia tries to forget him and come to terms with her new life. But can she move on and will she ever get over him?
The thoroughly modern ladies have embraced the freedom allowed them in the early 20th century, but this turns out to be conditional, and as always seems to be the case, men and women are still judged by different standards.
Patricia herself seems somewhat naive at times, but she has a difficult time of it, particularly in regard to children. These elements were particularly poignant. The narrative covers a number of years, flipping at times between past and present, and the couple do eventually divorce another trauma for Patricia to negotiate. Both she and Lucia are basically looking for happiness and stability in love; and despite the fact that Patricia makes a lucrative career for herself, her personal life is never easy.
She eventually does find another love-of-her-life, but happiness is not to be and she does settle for a comfortable solution in the end as does Lucia. She earned a lot from her writing but spent it all living the high life, marrying and divorcing another three times and ending her days in the charity ward of a New York hospital.
