The Used-Boy Raisers (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Grace Paley
- First Published: 1959
- Type of Plot: Psychological
- Time of Work: The 1950's
- Setting: Greenwich Village in New York City
- Principal Characters: Faith Darwin, Livid, Pallid
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s, Family or family life, Husbands, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Wives, New York City, Religion, Jews or Jewish life, Faith, Catholics or Catholic Church, Eggs
- Locales: Greenwich Village
The Story
Faith is preparing breakfast for both her husband and her former husband, who is back from a British colony in Africa and has slept on an aluminum cot in the living room as an overnight guest. As they talk over breakfast, it is difficult to tell the men apart. Faith privately assigns them names that make them seem like twins, so that although she calls one “Livid” and the other “Pallid,” they are otherwise indistinguishable. Faith derives these names from the way the men respond to the eggs that she prepares for them. One rejects the eggs in a livid way, the...
[The entire page is 1351 words long]
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