Critical Essay | Critical Review by Christine Watson

SOURCE: A review of The Passion of Women, in West Coast Review of Books, Vol. 16, No. 1, January, 1991, pp. 31-2.

In the following review of The Passion of Women, Watson focuses on how multiple narrators and a clear prose style effectively contribute to the mystery and suspense of the story.

The main character in this witty, provocative novel [The Passion of Women] is a man who appears only briefly onstage. The story of his life is told to us indirectly, by the eight women who loved and were left by this man, and by the end of the book we feel we know him as well as any of them.

Which is to say, we probably don't really know him at all.

We first see this mysterious figure through the eyes of Emma, a young woman kidnapped on her wedding night by an escaped convict named Vincent. He's...
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