I read a book years ago that I lent off a friend I have since lost contact with. From what I remember it started with a woman at her mother's funeral noticing a woman in the crowd she hadn't seen before. She goes to this woman's house and is given a manuscript to read.
It turns out this woman had a fling with her father, and they then lost touch. When they saw each other again, he was engaged to this woman's mother as she was a nice Catholic girl and he had gotten her pregnant.
At one point the woman's father and the stranger from the funeral had an affair, but then the man was hauled in front of the commity that was responsible for finding and exposing suspected communists and he gave them her brother's name. Her brother in his turn couldn't bear to ruin people's lives for no good reason and so they blacklisted him and ruined him and he ended up drinking himself to death. I think he actually died of a stomach ulcer of some kind made worse by the drinking.
The affair obviously ended and the next time the man tried to contact the woman she ignored him and next she heard he had died too. At some point this woman was married and pregnant and lost the baby. She was told she's never have another baby, then got pregnant again, and lost the child again.
The book ended with the daughter being told that there was a trust fund (which the woman from the book had set up for her and her brother on hearing of their father's death) and that she was to inherit 100% as her brother had been written out of the will, and she decides to give him a fair share of the inheritance based on the love the woman in the manuscript had for her lost brother.
I think the title has something to do with happiness, The Road to Happiness or something like that
It turns out this woman had a fling with her father, and they then lost touch. When they saw each other again, he was engaged to this woman's mother as she was a nice Catholic girl and he had gotten her pregnant.
At one point the woman's father and the stranger from the funeral had an affair, but then the man was hauled in front of the commity that was responsible for finding and exposing suspected communists and he gave them her brother's name. Her brother in his turn couldn't bear to ruin people's lives for no good reason and so they blacklisted him and ruined him and he ended up drinking himself to death. I think he actually died of a stomach ulcer of some kind made worse by the drinking.
The affair obviously ended and the next time the man tried to contact the woman she ignored him and next she heard he had died too. At some point this woman was married and pregnant and lost the baby. She was told she's never have another baby, then got pregnant again, and lost the child again.
The book ended with the daughter being told that there was a trust fund (which the woman from the book had set up for her and her brother on hearing of their father's death) and that she was to inherit 100% as her brother had been written out of the will, and she decides to give him a fair share of the inheritance based on the love the woman in the manuscript had for her lost brother.
I think the title has something to do with happiness, The Road to Happiness or something like that