Maureen Howard, Novelist Who Traced Women’s Challenges, Dies at 91

Maureen Howard, who first drew large consideration in 1965 along with her novel “Bridgeport Bus,” which got here to be thought to be a precursor to second-wave feminism, and went on to write down formidable, well-regarded books for 45 extra years, died on Sunday in Manhattan. She was 91.

Her daughter, Loretta Howard, confirmed the demise.

Ms. Howard’s novels, a few of which took Irish American assimilation as a theme, typically featured girls confronting challenges in marriage and society. Three successive midcareer works, “Grace Abounding” (1982), “Costly Habits” (1986) and “Pure Historical past” (1992), have been finalists for the celebrated PEN/Faulkner Award.

Her ultimate 4 books, as she described them, have been thematically a seasonal quartet — first winter with “A Lover’s Almanac” (1998), then spring with “Massive as Life” (2001), summer time with “The Silver Display screen” (2004) and, lastly, autumn with “The Rags of Time” (2009). Paul Slovak, her editor on these 4 books, which have been revealed by Viking, mentioned by e-mail that Ms. Howard’s works “featured an formidable interaction of historical past, politics, artwork and life as they tracked the tales of households and particularly of spirited, formidable girls, offering a broad tackle American life during the last 60 years.”

Ms. Howard, who additionally taught at Princeton, Yale and different establishments over time, was in her early 30s when she revealed her first novel, “Not a Phrase About Nightingales,” in 1962. “Bridgeport Bus,” three years later, was a few 35-year-old virgin named Mary Agnes who lives along with her mom, not notably fortunately:

“After I go residence my mom and I play a cannibal recreation; we eat one another over time, tender morsel by morsel till there’s nothing left however dry bone and wig.”