Company Woman by Kathleen De Grave

From the Publisher

Kathleen De Grave's first novel is a multi-faceted work--a leftist, feminist [romance], telling the story of the daughter of a trucker, now a trucker herself, and of the conflicst created by a strike. [women][fiction]

Publishers Weekly

DeGrave (who teaches at Pittsburgh State University) provides a plot of sorts but not much style in this plodding first novel. Hulda, a dump-truck driver on strike, is invited to become a management trainee and accepts, despite the protests of her co-worker (and perhaps something more) Vern. Even though Hulda's recruitment is meant to demoralize her fellow laborers, her whirlwind initiation into the upper-crust management world is frankly unbelievable. Besides receiving a $50,000 starting salary plus stock, she is tutored by a woman named Marge not only on how to work in an office, but on how to dress and socialize as well. Hulda's married boss, Robert, makes it clear that he wants to sleep with her, and meanwhile, Vern's disturbed daughter, Nora, has fallen under the spell of Sister Phyllis, who Nora met briefly in a mall bathroom and who runs some kind of Christian cult. Everyone seems to know each other, but this interaction never gives the characters greater depth or dimension. Nora keeps a diary, and plenty of entries are included, so a lot of ground is covered twice. DeGrave hits on some interesting points, but this scattershot novel heads in so many directions that it ends up back where it started. If meant as farce, it doesn't go far enough; if meant to be realism, it is way off base. (Sept.)

What People Are Saying

Chaz Bufe
"Hulda Olasson, the central character in this novel, has spent the last seven years driving a truck for a large construction company. She has always put her family, her work, and her union ahead of her own wants and desires. But when she gets a chance to enter the management trainee program, she jumps at the chance to 'improve' herself - even it means crossing the picket line and becoming a 'company woman'. De Grave's novel is a psychological gem, seeing Hulga's development as a boss and a loss of her sense of ethics. She is cought between her love for one of the strikers and the sexual demands of one of the supervisors. How she deals with her new life and the relationships is the crux of a powerful and moving novel."

Earl Lee
"'Company Woman' is a fascinating exploration of human emotions, including the conflict of romantic love with the desire for personal growth and fulfillment. Hulga explores her inner strength and physical desires for battling the advances of a boss and trying to deal with the emotional needs of her familiy and friends. This novel is luscious, multi-cultural feast."

Jo McDougal
"There's heartbreak and fun in this fast-paced story that gives us, at last, a character we can care about in the form of Hulga, and earthy, intelligent truck driver who's on the upwardly mobile swim in the corporate world as we captivate with her sensuality, her loyalty, and her inclinations toward evil. Kathleen DeGrave writes from an intimate knowledge of her character, and she knows how to shape language that leads us into hope's world that with tightness, control, and surprising imagery, gifts rare in novelist these days."

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