She Was

She Was Book Description

In her haunting, lyrical second novel, Janis Hallowell masterfully illustrates what happens when the heady, reckless idealism of youth goes awry--Elisabeth Hyde, author of "The Abortionist's Daughter."
Doreen Woods is many things: a successful dentist who donates time and skills to the needy, a loving wife and mother, a sister who cares for her dying brother. She has carefully built an exemplary life. But all of this is threatened when a comrade from the seventies shows up. Over the next week Doreen's past rushes in as she is forced to admit to her family and herself the actions that caused her to change her name and identity three decades earlier.

In 1970 she was impressionable and idealistic Lucy Johansson. When her brother, Adam, came home from Vietnam damaged and bitter, they moved to California, where she raged against the war and the Establishment with many others of her generation. She joined an antiwar group and participated in increasingly militant protests designed to bring attention to their cause and to change the world for the better. But all the best intentions and careful planning couldn't keep things from going terribly wrong.

Told from a twenty-first-century perspective, "She Was" spans the width of the American continent and the depth of social upheaval of the second half of the twentieth century. She Was explores the violent, determining act in one woman's life that mirrors the formative trauma of her age. "She Was" is a story about the indelible nature of the past, about hiding in the ordinary, and, ultimately, about making amends.

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'She Was' - A Truly Engaging Read  
By aman, 09/07/2009 09:53:26

This book by Janis Hallowell makes for an engrossing read with a winning story line. 'She was' is essentially a novel about a student revolutionary in the 70s. Doreen Woods is a successful dentist and a family person. She has a dying brother and she would do anything to save him.

There is a past that she chose to leave behind but comes haunting back after one of her old friends from her revolutionary days recognizes her. It brings the reader back to the 60s where there were aggressive tumults following the war in Vietnam. Dorron Woods had a different identity then, she was Lucy Johansson who raged against the war and the establishment, like many other young people of her time.

Although the reason why she has changed her identity was kept under wraps, she is forced to reveal the reasons to family. The events that happened three decades earlier was forced to be narrated and Lucy Johansson, the person she was, comes alive. The story has been narrated from a twenty-first-century perspective. The novel explores the violent, determining act in a woman's life that reflects the formative disturbance and trauma of her age. 'She was' is a story about the indelible nature of the past, about going into hiding and finally the nature of making amends to something which sometimes seems improbable.

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