From "A Prayer for Owen Meany". Time is 1961, place is a private high school in the small town of Gravesend, New Hampshire.

"Larry's mother, Mitzy Lish, had honey-colored, slightly sticky-looking hair - it was coiffed in a bouffant style - and her complexion was much improved by a suntan; in the winter months, when she'd not just returned from her annual pilgrimage to Round Hill, Jamaica, her skin turned a shade sallow. Because her complexion was further wrecked by blotchiness in the extreme cold, and because her excessive smoking had ill-influenced her circulation, a weekend of winter skiing in New England-even to forward the cause of her competition for her son's affection - did not favor either Mrs. Lish's appearance or her disposition. Yet was impossible not to see her as an attractive 'older' woman; she was not quite up to President Kennedy's standards, but Mitzy Lish was a beauty by any standard Owen and I had to compare her to.
...
"She wore too much gold and silver for New Hampshire; in New York, I"m sure, she was certainly in vogue-but her clothes and her jewelry, and her bouffant, were more suited to the kinds of hotels and cities where "evening" or formal clothes are standard. In Gravesend, (a small town in New Hampshire) she stood out; and it is hard to imagine that there was a small skiers' lodge in New Hampshire or in Vermont, that could have pleased her. She had ambitions beyond the simple luxury of a private bath; she was a woman who needed room service - who wanted her first cigarette and her coffee and her New York Times before she got out of bed. And then she would need sufficient light and a proper makeup mirror, in front of which she would require a decent amount of time; she would be snappish if ever she was rushed.

"Her days in New York, before lunch, consisted only of cigarettes and coffee and The New York Times-and the patient, loving task of making herself up. She was an impatient woman, but never when applying her makeup. Lunch with a fellow gossip, then; or these days, following her divorce, with her lawyer or a potential lover. In the afternoon, she'd have her hair done or she'd do a little shopping; at the very least, she'd buy a few new magazines. She might meet someone for a drink, later. She possessed all the up-to-date information that often passes for intelligence among people who make a daily and extensive habit of The New York Times -and the available, softer gossip-and she had oodles of time to consume all this contemporary news. She had never worked.



She took quite quite a lot of time for her evening bath, too, and then there was the evening makeup to apply; it irritated her to make any dinner plans that required her presence before eight o'clock-but it irritated her more to have no dinner plans. She didn't cook-not even eggs. She was too lazy to make real coffee; the instant stuff went well enough with her cigarettes and her newspaper. She would have been an early supporter of those sugar-free, diet soft drinks-because she was obsessed with losing weight (and opposed to exercise).

"She blamed her troublesome complexion on her ex-husband, who had been stressful to live with; and their divorce had cut her out of California-where she preferred to spend the winter months, where it was better for her skin. She swore her pores were actually larger in New York. But she maintained the Fifth Avenue apartment with a vengence; and included in her alimony was the expense of her annual pilgrimage to Round Hill, Jamaica - always at a time in the winter when her complexion had become intolerable to her - and a summer rental in the Hamptons (because not even Fifth Avenue was any fun in July and August). A woman of her sophistication-and used to the standard of living she'd grown accustomed to, as Herb Lish's wife and the mother of his only child - simply neeed the sun and the salt air.

"She would be a popular divorcee for quite a number of years; she would appear in no hurry to remarry - in fact, she'd turn down a few proposals. But, one year, she would either anticipate her looks were going, or she would notice that her looks had gone; it would take her more and more time in front of the makeup mirror-simply to salvage what used to be there. Then she would change, she would become quite aggressive on the subject of her second marriage; she realized it was time. Pity whatever boyfriend was with her at this time; he would be blamed for leading her on - and worse, for never allowing her to develop a proper career. There was no honorable course left to him but to marry the woman he had made so dependant on him - whoever he was. She would say he was the reason she'd never stopped smoking, too; by not marrying her, he had made her too nervous to stop smoking. And her oily complexion, formerly the responsibility of her ex-husband, was now the present boyfriend's fault, too; she was sallow, she was sallow because of him.

"He was also the cause of her announced depression. Were he to leave her - were he to abandon her, to not marry her - he could at the very least assume the financial burden of maintaining her psychiatrist. Without his aggravation, after all, she would never have needed a psychiatrist."