Angela's Business

by Henry Sydnor Harrison

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Library Binding

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Henry Sydnor Harrison was an American novelist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_S...

Reviews

[Peter McGinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first book I read by this author: “Queed.” The dialogue sounded modern (after all, it was published in 1915!) and realistic to the ear, and I liked the characters, especially the heroine, who was witty and lively like the female leads I like to include in the novels I write.

This novel— Angela’s Business —wasn’t the same experience for me. The female lead was smart and forward-thinking, but the author muddied the issue of who she was at the end. And I really didn’t like Charles, the lead male or hero if you will. He thought only of himself, as far as the writing felt to me, though we are to understand later he was thinking mostly of the above-mentioned heroine. He was supposedly a writer himself but instead of writing fiction exactly, he wrote about the people he knew and, judging by his thought processes, used his novels to lecture to the readers. It really wasn’t very believable to me, so perhaps we should just think of him as an unreliable narrator as that can cover a variety or writerly sins.

I will read another book by Mr. Harrison, to be sure, but my less enthusiastic reception of this book will free me up to move on to different writers in the short term.

[L. · Rating 2 out of 5]

What is Angela's business you may ask? Well, for the longest time her business is staring out a window and watching people passing by. We're not talking Rear Window kind of watching. Eventually Angela moves up to being an Uber driver.

There was almost potential here as author Henry Harrison's story delves (just a little bit) into the mystique of the Modern Woman. Would she be happier with work and a career over having a family? Could she have both?

But then we go back to that darn Angela puttering around town in her Fordette and sometimes carting around that wishy washy Charles Garrott.