Word: motheral
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Before they go any further, a message from Superman's mother tells him he must give up all his superpowers before he can get involved with a mortal. This raises a philosophic question of Thomist subtlety: Can the figure subsequently seen naked under the sheets with Lois be considered the real Superman? Or is he now just a newspaper reporter on a spree? To eradicate all such problems, the screenwriters magically imbue his kiss with the power to make Lois forget her discovery...
...born. Over Christmas and Easter vacations and during the summers, the house overflows with in-laws: "People came and went, said they were coming for a couple of days and stayed a week." Harriet's chores and recurrent pregnancies are eased by the almost constant presence of her mother, whose labor subsidizes this enterprise just as thoroughly as the money from David's father. But cost hardly seems to matter, measured against what it has helped to achieve: "Happiness. A happy family. The Lovatts were a happy family. It was what they had chosen and what they deserved...
Though he says his mother and his students refuse to believe that the novel's main character, Artie, and his love affair with a British beauty are not strictly autobiographical, he explains that he gave his characters "bits and pieces of different people's resumes. "Until I wrote this novel, I didn't believe in composite characters," says Mallon...
Added to this charm of style is a story that remains consistently riveting. The convoluted efforts of the psychiatrist Martha Livingstone and Mother Miriam Ruth to discover the truth behind the young nun Agnes' strangled baby have all the fascination of a beautifully morbid detective story. Sex and murder, after all, are seldom dull...
Finally, Christina Keily is more than suitably abrasive as the tortured Mother Miriam Ruth. Indeed, it is perhaps unfortunate that she chooses to be quite so tense throughout the entire play. Subdued histrionics are difficult to sustain at the best of times. Fortunately for all, she occasionally drops the tortured smile. Her discussion with Langford of the possible smoking habits of the saints is an oasis of subdued humor in the otherwise shrill uniformity of her portrayal...