The Mountain Lion

Jean Stafford · ★★★★★

Little did I know, when I decided to start reading this book, that I was about to discover one of my all time favorite characters in little Molly Fawcett and that I would be so moved and disappointed and frustrated and inspired within the brief pages of this book. Pages perfectly suited to describe the swift and potent devastation that occurs between childhood and adolescence. But then there's Molly, so confident and gloriously weird, so tragically better than everyone around her. Stafford reportedly wrote this book in 9 months during a stressful time in her unhappy marriage to the poet Robert Lowell. From that, I imagine, the book got its undercurrent of decision and finality, which is one of its most masterful qualities. Not a single sentence strays from the story's focus: what Stafford wants to say about Ralph and Molly Fawcett. A story that is completely committed to its final sentence and so inevitable about its ideas without being predictable. This is a masterpiece of American literature.