Sally Sweetsir, the extremely likable heroine of this instructive novel [Sweetsir], is a survivor. Victimized by most of the everyday ills of society—the deadening poverty of the working class, a meaningless and humiliating education, the brutality of unimaginative men—she nevertheless manages to preserve an impressive self-possession. She also murders her husband.

Though bizarre in summary, Sally's story becomes an utterly plausible one, and in exploring its snarled threads Yglesias exposes the kind of systematic degradation that drives ordinary people to violence….

Clearly a feminist tale, in that its protagonist's downfall lies in her relationship with men, Sweetsir avoids slipping into tracthood. The book's concerns are always for the specific and the personal, which are conveyed with a wonderfully gritty dialogue and the humor of self-deprecation.

Elizabeth Duvall, "Short Reviews: 'Sweetsir'," in The Atlantic Monthly (copyright © 1981, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston, Mass.; reprinted with permission), Vol...