Loose Ends

A witty, warm-hearted novel about a woman navigating the 1970s sexual revolution in Washington, DC, by the New York Times–bestselling author of Hot Flashes.   For nine hours a day, Coco Burman secludes herself on a six-by-ten-foot porch with a gallon of gin, five six-packs of tonic water, half a carton of Marlboros, and a portable typewriter. This self-exile was prompted by her husband's confession of adultery. Though Coco herself has had seven extramarital affairs throughout their twelve-year marriage without getting caught, it's her husband's infidelity that really counts. She uses it as the perfect excuse to completely reorganize her life and determines to write the Great American Woman's Novel.   But as the summer of 1972 drags on, Coco becomes increasingly caught between her post–women's lib ideals, her domestic obligations, and her prefeminist insecurities. Her novel is a means of showing the world how the inverted values of the 1950s have wreaked havoc on sensitive American women—and if she's lucky, it just might catapult her to fame.   A funny and caustic look at the emotional and psychological battles of a 1970s unfulfilled wife and mother, Loose Ends is a powerful precursor to author Barbara Raskin's bestselling feminist novel, Hot Flashes.