A Place Called Saturday

"To me there is something horrible about the idea that just because we can't see it, because it's formless, we have the right to kill it, like a bug under our heel." Thus does Cora March take her stand on the issue of abortion, a stand that is to have a profound effect on her husband, her marriage, her future, her life... For Cora and Rafe March the life they share together in a small Arizona desert community is idyllic in every respect save one: after almost four years of marriage they are still childless. Then one hot summer day Cora is brutally raped by a young and unknown assailant: three months later she learns that she is pregnant. Deaf to the pleas entreaties, anger and growing estrangement of her husband, she refuses to have an abortion, even though both realize that the pregnancy may be the result of the rape. Rather than permit the marriage to be destroyed, Rafe reluctantly gives in to his wife's wishes to bear the unborn child, only to have another crisis arise when the rapist is identified and discovered living nearby. The resolution to the story comes after as tense and agonizing a climax as has been pictured in recent fiction. Dealing forthrightly with the moral, ethical and emotional problems of a subject surrounded by taboos and controversy, Miss Astor has written a highly charged contemporary novel that will add new admirers to her ever-growing group of readers.