Dorothy Baker was een Amerikaanse romanschrijfster wier werken complexe menselijke relaties met onverschrokken eerlijkheid onderzochten. Haar proza werd gekenmerkt door precieze taal en een diep psychologisch inzicht in haar personages. Baker verdiepte zich vaak in thema's als identiteit, seksualiteit en familiale banden. Haar schrijven, hoewel beïnvloed door een bewonderde stilistische elegantie, behield een uniek en indringend perspectief.
Een Amerikaanse jongen leert zichzelf piano en daarna trompet spelen en wordt de grote ster van de Amerikaanse Jazz Age, de jaren twintig van de twintigste eeuw, maar zijn alcoholgebruik wordt een steeds groter probleem.
Cassandra Edwards is a graduate student at Berkeley: gay, brilliant, nerve-racked, miserable. At the beginning of this novel, she drives back to her family ranch in the foothills of the Sierras to attend the wedding of her identical twin, Judith, to a nice young doctor from Connecticut. Cassandra, however, is hell-bent on sabotaging the wedding. Dorothy Baker’s entrancing tragicomic novella follows an unpredictable course of events in which her heroine appears variously as conniving, self-aware, pitiful, frenzied, absurd, and heartbroken—at once utterly impossible and tremendously sympathetic. As she struggles to come to terms with the only life she has, Cassandra reckons with her complicated feelings about the sister who she feels owes it to her to be her alter ego; with her father, a brandy-soaked retired professor of philosophy; and with the ghost of her dead mother. First published in 1962, Cassandra at the Wedding is a book of enduring freshness, insight, and verve. Like the fiction of Jeffrey Eugenides and Jhumpa Lahiri, it is the work of a master stylist with a profound understanding of the complexities of the heart and mind.
Set in the twelfth century, the Queen embodies a timeless spirit, seamlessly navigating the comforts of the twenty-first century. With a strong belief that war is obsolete, she embraces her freedom and modern lifestyle, challenging the constraints of her historical context. Her character offers a unique perspective on the clash between past and present, highlighting themes of peace and liberation.