Cassandra at the Wedding
Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker is a reprint edition published by New York Review of Books on August 21, 2012. This 256-page novella presents the story of Cassandra Edwards, a graduate student at Berkeley who grapples with her identity as a gay woman while returning to her family ranch in the Sierras for her identical twin sister Judith’s wedding. As Cassandra navigates her complex emotions, she is determined to sabotage the wedding, revealing her struggles with familial relationships and her own sense of self.
Readers will find a blend of tragicomic elements as Cassandra’s character unfolds, showcasing her as both conniving and sympathetic. The narrative explores themes of coming of age and the intricacies of familial bonds, particularly between sisters. Through her interactions with her father and the memory of her deceased mother, Cassandra confronts the challenges of her life and the expectations placed upon her. This edition offers a fresh perspective on a story first published in 1962, highlighting Baker’s skillful storytelling and deep understanding of human emotions.
Official synopsis Publisher
Cassandra Edwards is a graduate student at Berkeley: gay, brilliant, nerve-racked, miserable. At the beginning of this novel, she drives back to her family ranch in the foothills of the Sierras to attend the wedding of her identical twin, Judith, to a nice young doctor from Connecticut. Cassandra, however, is hell-bent on sabotaging the wedding.
Dorothy Baker’s entrancing tragicomic novella follows an unpredictable course of events in which her heroine appears variously as conniving, self-aware, pitiful, frenzied, absurd, and heartbroken—at once utterly impossible and tremendously sympathetic. As she struggles to come to terms with the only life she has, Cassandra reckons with her complicated feelings about the sister who she feels owes it to her to be her alter ego; with her father, a brandy-soaked retired professor of philosophy; and with the ghost of her dead mother.
First published in 1962, Cassandra at the Wedding is a book of enduring freshness, insight, and verve. Like the fiction of Jeffrey Eugenides and Jhumpa Lahiri, it is the work of a master stylist with a profound understanding of the complexities of the heart and mind.
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