They have two children, Jean, born in 1960, and Daniel, born in 1965. Her first novel,
To the Precipice, appeared in 1966. The work contains a number of elements which have proved characteristic of Rossner's fiction. The plot employs a recognizable formula--in this case, that of the Cinderella love story. The poor, brave, hardworking, and beautiful Jewish heroine, Ruth, having been rejected by her irrational father while she is working as a tutor for the rich Stamm family, finally marries Walter Stamm, the divorced father of the child she is teaching. But other details vary the formula: to marry Stamm, Ruth gives up the novel's romantic hero, her childhood sweetheart David, a poor but handsome Jewish law student. Thus, at first
To the Precipice reads like a well-written popular romance in which Ruth and David are faced with such barriers between them as their poverty and his hostile mother. Soon, however, the novel is dominated by the conflict between selfishness and altruism that was to become dominant in Rossner's work. More and more Ruth is torn between her desire for wealth and her capacity for "true love" and self-sacrifice. Ruth's mother represents the extreme of self-sacrifice: she wears the same clothes for years and is constantly scrubbing, mending, penny-pinching.
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