On Borrowed Wings: A NovelAdele Pietra has heard her mother say that her destiny is carved in the same brilliantly hued granite her father and brother cleave from the Stony Creek mine: she is to marry a quarryman. But when Adele's brother, Charles, dies in a mining accident, Adele sees the chance to change her life. Enrolling at Yale as Charles, Adele assumes his identity -- and gender -- as a way to leave behind her mother's expectations and the limitations of her provincial Connecticut town. To her own surprise, hair chopped and chest bound, Adele falls in naturally with a lively crew of undergraduates: the Jewish Harry Persky with his slick Manhattan know-how, the quiet and mysterious legacy student Phineas, and the lanky, charismatic Wick. And in many ways, Adele faces her freshman year at Yale as would any undergraduate boy: she dreads invasive PE examinations and looks forward to dances, experiments with cigarettes and reads the classics. Through her work with a questionable eugenics professor and her friendship with a local Italian family, Adele confronts her class and ethnicity as never before, all the while fearing that both her crush on Wick and her mother's well-meaning interventions will put an end to her delicate masquerade. One part social history, one part comingof-age tale, On Borrowed Wings is an impeccably researched first novel that transports us to 1930s Yale, showing us around through the eyes of an unlikely, appealing female narrator. |
Contents
Section 1 | 3 |
Section 2 | 21 |
Section 3 | 37 |
Section 4 | 61 |
Section 5 | 87 |
Section 6 | 121 |
Section 7 | 151 |
Section 8 | 175 |
Section 10 | 209 |
Section 11 | 229 |
Section 12 | 241 |
Section 13 | 263 |
Section 14 | 281 |
Section 15 | 289 |
Section 16 | 309 |
Section 17 | 311 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adele already arrived asked believe body boys brother called chance Charles close clothes continued couldn’t course decided didn’t DiRisio don’t door eyes face father feel feet felt finally find fingers first followed girl give hair hand Harry Haven he’d head heard hope imagine inside keep knew leave legs letter lived longer looked matter mind minutes Miss Mother mouth never night noticed once passed person Phin Professor quarry question realized remember rest seemed seen sense she’d side skin smile Sometimes sound Spang started stay steps Stony Creek stood stopped sure talk tell thing thought told took tried turned voice wait walked watched whole Wick Wick’s wondered Yale