Eleanor Rushing: A Novel,Used

From Booklist How to explain an obsessive personality given to delusions of love? Look to childhood. Thirtyyearold Eleanor Rushing lost both parents in a plane crash when she was small, leaving her a poor little rich girl living in New Orleans with her grandfather and his housekeeper, Naomi, a warm, wisecracking black woman who has some of the best comeback lines in Friedman's second novel. Eleanor now claims Naomi molested her. But what is the raving of an unbalanced mind, and what is real? Meanwhile, Maxim Walters, a married Methodist minister, becomes the unwitting object of Eleanor's misdirected yearnings. When he travels to Nashville on business, Eleanor, who has staged an auto accident in front of his house to gain his attention, rises from her bed of pain to follow him, uninvited. She worms her way into dinner at his colleague's home, just as, convinced of their mutual passion, she manages to show up wherever he is whenever she can. This tale of sad obsession seems fearfully true to life. Whitney Scott Product Description Eleanor Rushing knows Maxim Walters loves her. At the crowded city council meeting, he chooses to sit beside her; from his pulpit, he preaches only to her, a vision in white sitting in the first pew. Soon, he invites her along on a business trip to Nashville, where they make love all night long.But Maxim sees things a little differently. The distinguished and very married preacher denies his love for Eleanor, but she understands his reluctance to walk away from the plain wife and the narrow path of virtue he chose long ago. Refusing to be refused, Eleanor showers Maxim with gifts and volunteers at the church simply to be near him.Though she appears to be undaunted, Eleanor is, in fact, deeply troubled. Sparing no detail, she recounts the tragedy that left her mute for four years, and the abuse she has suffered at the hands of her friends and family. Though these memoirs are often at odds with those of others around her, the nowloquacious Eleanor charms us completely until we can't help but become her willing and faithful supporters. In this narrative tourdeforce at once hilarious and deeply moving Friedmann gives a memorable look at the willfulness of obsessive love, the caustic mix of money and leisure, and the power of memory to damage the soul. From Publishers Weekly The tart, sassy voice of the eponymous heroine of Friedmann's intriguing and touching new novel lures the reader into Eleanor's chronicle of her obsessive passion for a New Orleans Methodist minister. Flashbacks to earlier events in Eleanor's life reveal a series of tragedies that might have unhinged anyone. They are so outrageous and unlikely, however, that the reader begins to understand that Eleanor is suffering from many delusions, although discovering the extent of her dementia must wait until the denouement. Eleanor tells us that she was orphaned at age 10 when her parents died in a plane crash. Naomi, her grandfather's black housekeeper, sexually molested Eleanor that very night; as a result, Eleanor stopped speaking for four years. As a teenager, Eleanor had an abortion after she became pregnant by her best friend's brother. No wonder that Eleanor has conceived a passion for spiritual leader Dr. Maximilian Walters, whom she pursues with singleminded frenzy. The reader immediately perceives that Eleanor only imagines he cares for her. Establishing the tension between Eleanor's fantasies and reality, whatever that may be, Friedmann (The Exact Image of Mother) controls her narrative artfully, allowing Eleanor to unwittingly reveal her solipsistic selfabsorption and arrested emotional development. The deeply screwy assurance with which she pursues Maxim is perfectly logical from Eleanor's point of view; one is reminded of the woman who stalked David Letterman. Friedmann's use of New Orleans atmosphere adds immeasurably to Eleanor's narration; such details as how the mirrors at Galatoire's create a