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Bad connections
The award-winning author of Minor Characters writes with delicious transparency about a love that cannot be harnessed and a woman who refuses to be deceived
In the great wave of husband-leaving ushered in by the Sexual Revolution, Molly Held frees herself from her cold, flagrantly unfaithful husband after their final quarrel turns violent. With her five-year-old son, she lights out for an Upper West Side apartment and the new life she hopes to find with Conrad Schwartzberg--the charismatic radical lawyer who has recently become her lover. Having escaped from a desert, she lands in a swamp.
While Conrad radiates positive energy, he is unable to tell Molly--or anyone who loves him--the truth. No longer the wronged wife, Molly now finds herself the Other Woman. She is sharing Conrad with Roberta, another refugee from marriage--with Conrad's movements between the two of them disguised by his suspiciously frequent out-of-town engagements.
Roberta either knows nothing or prefers to look the other way, but Molly's maddening capacity for double vision takes over her mind. What saves her from herself is her well-developed sense of irony, which never fails her--or the reader.
In the great wave of husband-leaving ushered in by the Sexual Revolution, Molly Held frees herself from her cold, flagrantly unfaithful husband after their final quarrel turns violent. With her five-year-old son, she lights out for an Upper West Side apartment and the new life she hopes to find with Conrad Schwartzberg--the charismatic radical lawyer who has recently become her lover. Having escaped from a desert, she lands in a swamp.
While Conrad radiates positive energy, he is unable to tell Molly--or anyone who loves him--the truth. No longer the wronged wife, Molly now finds herself the Other Woman. She is sharing Conrad with Roberta, another refugee from marriage--with Conrad's movements between the two of them disguised by his suspiciously frequent out-of-town engagements.
Roberta either knows nothing or prefers to look the other way, but Molly's maddening capacity for double vision takes over her mind. What saves her from herself is her well-developed sense of irony, which never fails her--or the reader.
262 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1978
6 people are currently reading
59 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Johnson
102 books103 followersBorn Joyce Glassman to a Jewish family in Queens, New York, Joyce was raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, just around the corner from the apartment of William S. Burroughs and Joan Vollmer Burroughs. Allen Ginsberg and Kerouac were frequent visitors to Burroughs' apartment.
At the age of 13, Joyce rebelled against her controlling parents and began hanging out in Washington Square. She matriculated at Barnard College at 16, failing her graduation by one class. It was at Barnard that she became friends with Elise Cowen (briefly Allen Ginsberg's lover) who introduced her to the Beat circle. Ginsberg arranged for Glassman and Kerouac to meet on a blind date.
Joyce was married briefly to abstract painter James Johnson, who was killed in a motorcycle accident. From her second marriage to painter Peter Pinchbeck, which ended in divorce, came her son, Daniel Pinchbeck, also an author and co-founder of Open City literary magazine.
Since 1983 she has taught writing, primarily at Columbia University's MFA program, but also at the Breadloaf Writers Conference, the University of Vermont and New York University. In 1992 she received an NEA grant.
At the age of 13, Joyce rebelled against her controlling parents and began hanging out in Washington Square. She matriculated at Barnard College at 16, failing her graduation by one class. It was at Barnard that she became friends with Elise Cowen (briefly Allen Ginsberg's lover) who introduced her to the Beat circle. Ginsberg arranged for Glassman and Kerouac to meet on a blind date.
Joyce was married briefly to abstract painter James Johnson, who was killed in a motorcycle accident. From her second marriage to painter Peter Pinchbeck, which ended in divorce, came her son, Daniel Pinchbeck, also an author and co-founder of Open City literary magazine.
Since 1983 she has taught writing, primarily at Columbia University's MFA program, but also at the Breadloaf Writers Conference, the University of Vermont and New York University. In 1992 she received an NEA grant.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 26, 2020
This is a story about Molly and men. At the start she is thirty five and married with a son of five. The setting is NYC in the 1970s. The story Is not just about Molly and men, it is in fact about women and men and how we relate to each other.
Abused by her husband, Molly divorces, takes their child and moves to a small apartment in the Village. This happens quickly, at the start. The book’s focus is not the physical / psychological abuse of wives. It is about what Molly is looking for in a marital relationship. Should she marry again?
We see Molly as a married woman, as a divorced woman, as a single, working, woman raising a child and as a lover. She has been cheated on, but now the table is turned. Will she now cause the breakup of a couple! If life were simple, figuring out what is right and what wrong would be easy, but life is not simple. Molly comes to have several lovers. Each relationship is complicated, as are the individuals of the relationships. What relationship aren’t?! We observe Molly’s choices.
What makes this book so very good is that it is easy to relate to Molly. Her thoughts are thoughts many of us share. It doesn’t matter if the choices she makes differ from the choices we have made!
Look at the quotes below. Do they speak to you? They speak to me, and the choices I have made differ from Molly’s. I admire Molly.
The holiday season has begun, and Molly is crying. Why? What does she say?
“It is just my annual pre-holiday depression...At my age, I should be immune to the holidays.”
In reply to things not getting done, Molly is told, “We all have our own timetables!” Do you see the humor?
Should we think like this:
“I’d like to keep seeing you in this casual way.”
or like this?
“I want peace; I want monogamy! “
“Is it more exciting to make love to her, after you have made love to me?”
“I am trying to correct a very lopsided impression.”
“I will try to want no more than I have.”
“To live with someone preoccupied totally with themselves is lonely.”
“I told myself I was still having a good time.”
“It’s like happiness. Once one has identified it, it has already come and gone.”
Molly tell this story. Most is related in the first person narrative. Occasionally it switches to the third person narrative. When it changes, you immediately pay attention.These sections put the reader at a distance; here we observe Molly impartially. This is effective; the reader changes perspective.
Jorjeana Marie narrates the audiobook very well. She speaks calmly, contemplatively. Her voice reflects Molly’s way of being. You hear every work spoken, and you have time to think. The reading is not full of screaming, this would not match Molly’s temperament. If you are looking for theatrical dramatization, you may not enjoy Jorjeana Marie’s narration as much as I do. I rate the narration with four stars.
This book grew on me. My attraction to it became stronger the more I read. This is because the more you read the more you understand who Molly is. I think woman growing up in the fifties and sixties, particularly those from cities on the East Coast of America will feel at home with the language used and the mode of thinking. The Sexual Revolution influenced us and our adolescence. If you have lived in NYC, you will feel an even stronger connection. The author is of the Beat Generation, a forerunner to the Hippie Generation, which many of us once belonged to. I believe this book will speak to all women but especially to those of that era. I really like this book. I recommend that you read it.
*****************
Female authors of the Beat Generation:
*In the Night Cafe by Joyce Johnson 5 stars
*Bad Connections by Joyce Johnson 4 stars
*Come and Join the Dance by Joyce Johnson 4 stars
*How I Became Hettie Jones by Hettie Jones 3 stars
Abused by her husband, Molly divorces, takes their child and moves to a small apartment in the Village. This happens quickly, at the start. The book’s focus is not the physical / psychological abuse of wives. It is about what Molly is looking for in a marital relationship. Should she marry again?
We see Molly as a married woman, as a divorced woman, as a single, working, woman raising a child and as a lover. She has been cheated on, but now the table is turned. Will she now cause the breakup of a couple! If life were simple, figuring out what is right and what wrong would be easy, but life is not simple. Molly comes to have several lovers. Each relationship is complicated, as are the individuals of the relationships. What relationship aren’t?! We observe Molly’s choices.
What makes this book so very good is that it is easy to relate to Molly. Her thoughts are thoughts many of us share. It doesn’t matter if the choices she makes differ from the choices we have made!
Look at the quotes below. Do they speak to you? They speak to me, and the choices I have made differ from Molly’s. I admire Molly.
The holiday season has begun, and Molly is crying. Why? What does she say?
“It is just my annual pre-holiday depression...At my age, I should be immune to the holidays.”
In reply to things not getting done, Molly is told, “We all have our own timetables!” Do you see the humor?
Should we think like this:
“I’d like to keep seeing you in this casual way.”
or like this?
“I want peace; I want monogamy! “
“Is it more exciting to make love to her, after you have made love to me?”
“I am trying to correct a very lopsided impression.”
“I will try to want no more than I have.”
“To live with someone preoccupied totally with themselves is lonely.”
“I told myself I was still having a good time.”
“It’s like happiness. Once one has identified it, it has already come and gone.”
Molly tell this story. Most is related in the first person narrative. Occasionally it switches to the third person narrative. When it changes, you immediately pay attention.These sections put the reader at a distance; here we observe Molly impartially. This is effective; the reader changes perspective.
Jorjeana Marie narrates the audiobook very well. She speaks calmly, contemplatively. Her voice reflects Molly’s way of being. You hear every work spoken, and you have time to think. The reading is not full of screaming, this would not match Molly’s temperament. If you are looking for theatrical dramatization, you may not enjoy Jorjeana Marie’s narration as much as I do. I rate the narration with four stars.
This book grew on me. My attraction to it became stronger the more I read. This is because the more you read the more you understand who Molly is. I think woman growing up in the fifties and sixties, particularly those from cities on the East Coast of America will feel at home with the language used and the mode of thinking. The Sexual Revolution influenced us and our adolescence. If you have lived in NYC, you will feel an even stronger connection. The author is of the Beat Generation, a forerunner to the Hippie Generation, which many of us once belonged to. I believe this book will speak to all women but especially to those of that era. I really like this book. I recommend that you read it.
*****************
Female authors of the Beat Generation:
*In the Night Cafe by Joyce Johnson 5 stars
*Bad Connections by Joyce Johnson 4 stars
*Come and Join the Dance by Joyce Johnson 4 stars
*How I Became Hettie Jones by Hettie Jones 3 stars
December 27, 2014
Written with charm and wit, this story initially reads as a somewhat pedestrian story of sexual relationships in the 1970's. By pieces, though, Johnson's tale reveals character studies, in a way, of all the various roles a woman could find herself in during those times; the married woman, the divorced woman, the "other" woman, the woman who is being cheated on, the woman who is needed by her lover, the woman who is ignored for seemingly no reason. Each of these angles are presented tenderly and without judgement, since any woman could find herself in any of these situations. Our heroine, Molly, involves herself with a few men, none of whom are able to fulfill her simple desires of love and affection, dedication and sincerity. Ultimately, Molly will have to make hard decisions to find stability in her life, but along the way the reader is taken on an emotional tour de force.
July 16, 2021
It was very difficult to finish Bad Connections, as it is just a one sided view of the world from a very unsympathetic character. I understand the story was supposed to be a fuller portrait of women as a whole, but damn it makes them look dumb.
So there is this woman who has to navigate through being the wife, the sexually unsatisfied, the adulteress, the divorcee, the single mother, the mistress, the woman on the side, the compulsive clinger and so on. I guess it was supposed to make the reader understand what it means to be female, yet Molly is emotional, compulsive, egotistic and ultimately weak. The scene at the end it written to provide some sort of feeling of emancipation, but in fact made me think she was even more of a coward than before.
Bottom line: Joyce Johnson may be a big shot beatnik writer who hung out with Kerouac, but I did not like this book. It was short, yet unentertaining. It was full of meaning, of which I felt none was interesting or educational.
So there is this woman who has to navigate through being the wife, the sexually unsatisfied, the adulteress, the divorcee, the single mother, the mistress, the woman on the side, the compulsive clinger and so on. I guess it was supposed to make the reader understand what it means to be female, yet Molly is emotional, compulsive, egotistic and ultimately weak. The scene at the end it written to provide some sort of feeling of emancipation, but in fact made me think she was even more of a coward than before.
Bottom line: Joyce Johnson may be a big shot beatnik writer who hung out with Kerouac, but I did not like this book. It was short, yet unentertaining. It was full of meaning, of which I felt none was interesting or educational.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews