The Secret Spring of Edith Cooley

Inspired by a true story & set in a Greenwich Village Brownstone, The Secret Spring of Edith Cooley is a richly textured novel with compelling social & psychological implications. Edith Cooley, an aging scholar, sets a stage one spring for a mysterious chain of events in which she seems to purposely involve Natalie Tanner, a shy young art student. Also pivotal are Jake Laslo, a gifted & misanthropic artist for whom Tanner feels an inexplicable responsibility & "King" a still-handsome middle-aged jazz composer whose curious involvement with Edith adds not only intriguing turn of events for Tanner but a dark & final dimension to the outcome. Revolving around the modern blight of loneliness & disenchantment, the novel's central riddle also compels new & exhilarating views of the trials "of youth, of old age, of the dangers (or benefits) of narcissism, of the eternal quest for love, all faces of, even Platonic or imaginary..." Combining timeless echos of Conrad & Dostoevsky with an analytical playfulness of a Borges or Marquez, The Secret Spring of Edith Cooley is a novel of extremes, both tender & gripping, quixote & mournful & tightly woven into a continuing refrain of ironies that not only provokes but restores. A must for the serious reader, or modern soul in pain. To order: e-mail: www.amazon.com, Literature & Fiction wjoandarc@cs.com.A. M. Provinzano is the author of 'The Secret Spring of Edith Cooley' with ISBN 9781930185005 and ISBN 1930185006.