false 2221005 0061243256 9780061243257 32 19 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255981544m/2221005.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2221005.She_Was_A_Novel 61883 Janis Hallowell 292 63 4 1 false Fri May 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Mar 30 21:17:03 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 06 15:09:42 -0700 2008 The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn with another novel that throws quotidian family life together with big, over-arching American political themes. She Was follows a 1970s radical who reinvents herself as a wife, mother, and dentist, only to be "outed" three decades after she dropped out of the movement. Although some of the historical sections, in which we see the heroine enmeshed in the politics of the 60s, felt more studied than instinctive, but Hallowell makes up for them with intimate understanding of her protagonist's caught-between-identities plight. The book is at its best when it shows its heroine scared and uncertain, trying--like America itself--to reconcile what it was in the 70s with what it has become today. ]]>