Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting

English writer Mortimer (The Pumpkin Eater) offers a simmering portrait of suburban malaise, originally published in 1958. With the children away at school, Ruth Whiting, 37, feels stifled by her domineering husband, Rex, and the prattle of the neighbors in their satellite town outside London. She’s painfully aware of the standards expected of society wives, and struggles to conform. To make matters worse, Rex has installed the prying “wardess” Miss de Beer to keep tabs on and take care of Ruth, whose anxiety makes life feel like “a state of perpetual danger.” All this comes to a head when her oldest daughter, Angela, 18, gets pregnant while visiting home from Oxford. Under the oblivious eye of Miss de Beer, Ruth tries to arrange an abortion, by no means an easy thing in an era when they were illegal and scandalous. The ensuing drama is a harrowing journey into Ruth’s increasingly desperate psyche, as she both envies Angela her freedom and dearly hopes to help her avert the same fate that befell her—a prisoner of marriage seldom at home even in her own house. Mortimer (1918–1999) avoids easy answers in her nuanced take on the life of a woman who is quietly compromised. This easily earns a place on the shelf of noteworthy early feminist literature. Agent: Sonia Land, Sheil Land Assoc. (May)