chunk: Linda Condon is about a wealthy woman—the eponymous heroine—who never learns to have, let alone show, any emotions or, as the narrator puts it, to "lose herself". Although she does not do anybody any harm, in the course of the novel Linda is likened to Siberia, described by her husband as a "woman of alabaster", and calls herself "the most sterile woman alive". Married at 18, she sees herself "in a place of little importance" and at the same time "bound on a journey with a hidden destination". Linda Condon is dedicated to Carl Van Vechten.Linda Condon is raised by her single mother, who denies the girl any information about her absentee father. Mother and daughter live together in a seemingly endless succession of hotels in various regions of the United States, and Linda receives little formal education. While Stella Condon frequently goes out with men of dubious reputation, her daughter, who is always loyal to her shallow and superficial mother, spends her early adolescent days alone