Introduction
It is argued amongst learned men and women with alphabetic suffixes to their names that if attractiveness in mate selection is an acquired value, then the heterosexual choice of mate from within the nuclear family unit is a natural and understandable phenomenon, except that law and custom forbid it. And, accordingly, it is still a question hotly debated by social psychologists and others engaged in the study of contemporary sexual mores.
We, the publishers, were as aghast as you, the reader, will be by the time you reach the conclusion of this heart-rendering chronicle, Mother's New Job. Again, as in all his novels, author John Lewis has attempted to present a believable case study for the broader understanding of phenomena normally considered taboo in current American literature.
Lewis pulls no punches as he delves into the psychological motives of each of the story's principal characters motives that in various guises have affected nearly all of us at one time or another. Beginning with the attractive young mother's almost whimsical decision to abandon her job and the winter cold of Minnesota in order to drop in unexpectedly on her son and his pregnant bride in California, and following fecundly through to a rapid series of events that culminate in a curiously illogical but entirely believable conclusion, we are certain that you will be unable, as we were, to shelf this book in an incomplete state.
Of course, as in all of Mr. Lewis' books, there is just no way to compromise on dialogue and narrative and still come up with a tale fraught with the very stuff from which life itself is made. Some, perhaps many, will be shocked and appalled by the admittedly graphic descriptions contained herein, but we hope that that will not interfere with your enjoyment of what is essentially a highly moralistic tone. It is neither the author's wishes, nor our own, to offer thus a diluted rendition of an all-too-common situation that bears closer inspection by us all.
-THE PUBLISHERS