Indelicacy, by Amina Cain

Having just read Edith Wharton’s The house of Mirth, in which a society woman, through bad decisions and for lack of a wealthy husband, spirals downward into poverty and ultimate death, it was an serendipitous contrast to read this new novel which seems to be set in approximately the same time period. And there are echoes of Wharton among other writers. Written in the first person, the main character is a cleaning woman in a renowned art museum who rises through marriage to an independent single life. What the narrator wants to be is a writer, in fact, she is driven to carry around a notebook at all times in which to write her reflections on the paintings in the museum. Her free time is also spent in writing constantly. When a well-to-do museum visitor woes and marries her, she is at first fairly content in her new life. However, the demands of entertaining guests become both burdensome and an interruption to her writing and her pursuit of more intellectual passions, such as the ballet and theater. An odd book, which is beautifully written and has a satisfyingly hopeful end for the narrator. We finally learn her name, Vitoria (conqueror), towards the very end of the short novel. 161 pp.