When Playing House appeared in 1973, Publishers Weekly
hailed it, "A probing descent into madness that will fascinate the same
audience that appreciated I Never Promised You a Rose Garden."
This nationally bestselling story of one woman’s struggle with the
lasting effects of a childhood sexual relationship with her brother
shocked American readers; it remains a literary work of enduring
quality and value. In his foreword Philip Roth writes, "The traumatized
child; the institutionalized wife; the haunting desire; the ghastly
business of getting through the day -- what is striking about Wagman's
treatment of these contemporary motifs is the voice of longing in which
the heroine shamelessly confesses to the incestuous need that is at
once her undoing and her only hope."
