His original intention had been to drive to Florida now, again by pure caprice, he decides to head west. On a trip to the mountains with her sister and brother-in-law, they are accosted by an armed man who, after robbing them and cleaning out their camper, decides on a whim to abduct her. She is 34 years old, the librarian at a small town in western North Carolina, unmarried. It is followed, unfortunately, by a second novel in which the same woman is nursed back to health, falls in love, and returns home to accomplish her final liberation this novel might be described as superior women's-magazine fiction. The first, which ends on page 215, is quite brilliant it is the story of a woman who, idly yearning for "a new and freer life," suddenly finds herself sucked into a journey of prolonged fear and gradual self-discovery. But as a novelist she reaches for a larger audience her novels are not exactly "commercial," inasmuch as that term has acquired negative overtones that do not apply to any of her work, but they do tend to be overlong and overplotted.
As a writer of short stories she is in the tradition of Flannery O'Connor, though very much herself these stories appear in literary magazines, mainly Southern ones, and have earned her a reputation as a craftsman and stylist worthy of comparison with O'Connor, Peter Taylor, Eudora Welty and other American masters of short fiction. In fact she is a writer with two careers, or two personalities. She is one of the best writers of fiction in the country, and a very important figure among those Southern writers who have come to prominence since the '60s, but she has yet to demonstrate a firm grasp on the structural complexities of the novel in Heading West, as in her previous novels, she reveals herself to be a short-story writer who is uncomfortable going long distance. It may be her "breakthrough" book in a commercial sense, but it is not an artistic breakthrough.
Those coming to her work for the first time will find that she writes clear, vivid prose, creates distinct and interesting characters, and is a master at conveying the nuances of psychological conflict she is a serious writer whose books are unfailingly intelligent and readable.īut for those who have followed Betts' work over the years, Heading West is not unalloyed good news.
The novel, her fourth, has been chosen by the Book-of-the-Month Club as a dual main selection, which assures it a substantial readership. PERHAPS THE BEST NEWS about Heading West is that it should liberate Doris Betts from the relative obscurity in which she has labored for most of her career.
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