Charades

New York: Bantam, 1989. First Printing . Hard Back. Fine/Near Fine. 6" x 9. 291 Pages. March 1989 Bantam Edition. Moving from the Autralian rainforwest to Canada to the hallowed halls of MIT, the story unravels an extraordinary story as a young woman with a murky poast searches desperately for her elusive father. Imagine for a moment Bea Ryan, the Slut of Tamborine Mountain, Australia --- Queen Bea, Honey Bea, that Bloody Breeder Bea: she''s a sexy beautiful woman with no husband and ten children by ten different men. What is at the center of her life out in the Australian rainforest? Nicholas Ttruman, handsome, well-educated, well-bred is her motivating force, her fantasy, her hope for the future. yet when he disappears with Veerity Ashkenazy, an aloof, brilliant woman rumored to be a Jewish refugee, Bea reconciles herself to a life without Nicholas, even though sh has had a daughter by him --- charade. And when Charade grows up, she is just as obsessed by Nicholas Truman, by this man she's never met, this father who never appeared. So she sets out to discover the truth about her past. And in doing so finds that truth has different versions. A novel about the games we play with our own memories, about the ways we ficitonalize mythicize our own pasts.