Marrying Mom: A Novel

Front Cover
HarperCollins, 1996 - Fiction - 207 pages
Phyllis Geronomous is witty, blunt, razor-sharp-- and the despair of her family. She's a senior citizen and an original, still trying to run the lives of her three grown children. As far as they're concerned, Phyllis' best attribute is that she's a Florida resident, while they live in New York.

When Phyllis decides that retirement and spending the holidays alone in Miami are not for her, and that she's moving back to the Big Apple. Sigourney, Sharon and Bruce are horrified. They just can't let crazy Phyllis ruin their lives all over again. Murder is out-- purely for practical reasons. And Christmas is unbearable enough without a visit from Mom-- and what if she stays, as she's threatening to do?

Sig is a single, stylish, control-freak stockbroker who is terrified of her downsized professional and personal life; Sharon is a neurotic suburban housewife with two young children and an unemployed husband; and Bruce-- the baby of the family-- is a gay greeting-card entrepreneur whose business is folding faster than you can say "Queer Santa." Phyllis' arrival in New York will be the unraveling of them all. Only Sig has the ideal solution: They'll join forces and marry Mom off. Then she'll be someone else's problem. They call the plan "Operation Geezer Quest," but where are they going to find an old, deaf, dumb, blind and, above all, rich groom?

"Marrying Mom" is more than just a family farce or senior romance-- it is a wickedly funny comedy of New York manners. From the bestselling author of "The First Wives Club" and "The Bestseller," "Marrying Mom" puts a delightful new twist on the notion of holiday cheer.

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Contents

Section 1
1
Section 2
11
Section 3
21
Copyright

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About the author (1996)

Author Olivia Goldsmith was born Randy Goldfield in Dumont, New Jersey in 1949. She attended New York University and became one of the first partners at the management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton in New York. After she divorced her husband, she moved to London, changed her legal name to Justine Rendal, and became a writer. Her 1992 debut novel, "The First Wives Club" became a best-seller and was made into a movie in 1996. In her stories, there's a transformation of the main character and, according to Goldsmith, "In the Olivian universe, everybody gets what they deserve." Besides novels, she wrote articles for The New York Times and Cosmopolitan and wrote children's books under the name Justine Rendal. She received the Woman of Vision Award in 1997. She died from complications related to anesthesia on January 15, 2004 at the age of 54

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