A pregnant thirteen-year-old’s apocalyptic vision of the late 20th century

The Talking Room reflects an apocalyptic vision of the late 20th century, seen through the eyes of a pregnant thirteen-year-old who may not be a test tube baby. The Lesbian relationship between the mother J—wild, lost, beautiful—and competent Aunt V, a businesswoman, reveals itself to the reader as “the talking room” becomes the sounding board for the endless fights, endless reconciliations. V’s desperate search for the beloved J through the nights of waterfront bars is lightened by wildly comic excursions reminiscent of our great American humorists. With wit, poetic clarity and compassion, Marianne Hauser explores the paradoxes of our age—need for love yet flight from love, search for self yet self-destruction—a dilemma shared alike by today’s heterosexual and homosexual world. The author’s multifaceted view defies dogma or simplification as her characters draw us into their turbulent and deeply human drama.

In the course of her long career, Marianne Hauser published numerous works of fiction, including Prince Ishmael, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and selected by The New York Times as one of the year’s outstanding books. Her other books include Monique, Shadow Play in India, Dark Dominion, The Choir Invisible, A Lesson in Music, Me & My Mom, The Memoirs of the Late Mr. Ashley, and The Talking Room, published by Fiction Collective 2. She died in June 2006, at the age of ninety-five.