W-3 by Bette Howland

W-3 by Bette Howland

An extraordinary portrait of a brilliant mind on the brink: A new edition of the 1974 memoir by the author of the acclaimed collection Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. With an introduction by Yiyun Li.

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin--real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life could begin. At last it had dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

From the author of the acclaimed collection Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage comes W-3, the account of a brilliant mind on the brink. In 1968, Bette Howland was thirty-one, a single mother of two young sons, struggling to support her family on the part-time salary of a librarian; and laboring day and night at her typewriter to be a writer. One afternoon, while staying at her friend Saul Bellow's apartment, she swallowed a bottle of pills. W-3 is both an extraordinary portrait of the community of Ward 3, the psychiatric wing of the Chicago hospital where she was admitted; and record of a defining moment in a writer's life. The book itself would be her salvation: she wrote herself out of the grave.

First published in 1974, the memoir that launched Bette Howland's career is being reissued as part of A Public Space's ongoing revival of one of the significant writers of her generation. (Saul Bellow) With a new introduction by Yiyun Li.

Howland, Bette: - Bette Howland (1937-2017) published three books in her lifetime: W-3, and the story collections Blue in Chicagoand Things to Come and Go. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1984, after which she did not publish another book. Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, her selected stories, was published in 2019, restoring to the canon the work of a remarkable writer.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781736370902
ISBN 10	1736370901
Title	W-3
Author	Bette Howland
Condition	Unavailable
Binding type	Paperback
Publisher	A Public Space
Year published	2022-08-11
Number of pages	224
Prizes	Winner of Guggenheim Fellowship 1978 (United States), Winner of MacArthur Fellowship 1984 (United States)
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable