Slavenka Drakulic "Marble Skin."

Psychoanalysts talk about the primal scene when a child witnesses a sex act and it affects her view of sexuality for life. The narrator views a watches her stepfather in a sexual act with her mother in their marriage bed. It is an act this man will later reenact with the girl.

The way Drakulić crafts the scene, with a gentle allusion to <em>Alice in Wonderland</em>, the reader simultaneously experiences the dread of entering the room as an adult and the memory of the mother’s body splayed on the bed

Is there a relationship more complex than that between a mother and a daughter? Love and admiration mix ineffably with jealousy and resentment. Through the seemingly simple (but deeply layered) language of <em>Marble Skin, </em>Slavenka Drakulić unweaves the conflicts and emotions that estrange and entangle women.

This novel is structured as a memoir of a woman’s very flawed relationship with her mother who never seems to have accepted her daughter as a woman. Book describes complex mother/daughter relationship after husband/father suicide. Anyone familiar with Eastern European culture knows that widows and divorcees with children are not a great "catch". One wonders if that is why mother in this novel decides to remain silent upon learning that her own daughter was raped by her stepfather.

Publisher‏: ‎ The Womens Press; New Edition.

Paperback, 1994.

New book. Very light shelf wear, a couple of scratches on back cover. Very slightly yellowing edges of pages.