Olivia (Rossner novel) Olivia (Rossner novel) Olivia (or, The Weight of the Past) is the penultimate novel by Judith Rossner, author of the critically acclaimed best sellers "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" and "August". Published in 1994 by Crown, "Olivia" examines "a mother-daughter conflict set in the world of gastronomy." Caroline Sindler is a chef and popular cooking teacher. In flashback, she recounts her past life: after showing an early interest, she learns to cook. After dropping out of college, she travels to Italy, where she finds work in a restaurant, and meets Angelo, a Sicilian in his thirties. After becoming pregnant by him,
The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein that while he argues that Mary Shelley was not well educated enough to have written "Frankenstein", his argument fails because "it is not a good, let alone a great novel and hardly merits the attention it has been given." Lauritsen replied that "Frankenstein" "is a radical and disturbing work, containing some of the most beautiful prose in the English language ... a profound and moving masterpiece, fully worthy of its author, Percy Bysshe Shelley." "The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein" received positive reviews from Jim Herrick in "Gay Humanist Quarterly", Hubert Kennedy in "The Guide", and Douglas Sadownick in "The Gay