These three long stories draw us into the lives of three women, all past their
first youth, all facing unexpected crises. In the title story, the heroine's
serenity is shattered when she learns that her husband is having an affair. In "
The Age of Discretion, " a successful, happily married professor finds herself
increasingly distressed by her son's absorption in his young wife and her
worldly values. In " The Monologue, " a rich, spoiled woman, home alone on New
Year's Eve, pours out a lifetime's rage and frustration in a harrowing diatribe.
Enthralling as fiction, suffused with de Beauvoir's remarkable insights into
women, The Woman