Author: Alice Jolly
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783525509
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 592
Book Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2019 Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2019 2019 Walter Scott Prize Academy recommendation If you tell a story oft enough So it become true As the nineteenth century draws towards a close, Mary Ann Sate, an elderly maidservant, sets out to write her truth. She writes of the Valleys that she loves, of the poisonous rivalry between her employer's two sons and of a terrible choice which tore her world apart. Her haunting and poignant story brings to life a period of strife and rapid social change, and evokes the struggles of those who lived in poverty and have been forgotten by history. In this fictional found memoir, novelist Alice Jolly uses the astonishing voice of Mary Ann to recreate history as seen from a woman's perspective and to give joyful, poetic voice to the silenced women of the past.
Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile
Author: Alice Jolly
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783525509
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 592
Book Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2019 Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2019 2019 Walter Scott Prize Academy recommendation If you tell a story oft enough So it become true As the nineteenth century draws towards a close, Mary Ann Sate, an elderly maidservant, sets out to write her truth. She writes of the Valleys that she loves, of the poisonous rivalry between her employer's two sons and of a terrible choice which tore her world apart. Her haunting and poignant story brings to life a period of strife and rapid social change, and evokes the struggles of those who lived in poverty and have been forgotten by history. In this fictional found memoir, novelist Alice Jolly uses the astonishing voice of Mary Ann to recreate history as seen from a woman's perspective and to give joyful, poetic voice to the silenced women of the past.
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783525509
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 592
Book Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2019 Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2019 2019 Walter Scott Prize Academy recommendation If you tell a story oft enough So it become true As the nineteenth century draws towards a close, Mary Ann Sate, an elderly maidservant, sets out to write her truth. She writes of the Valleys that she loves, of the poisonous rivalry between her employer's two sons and of a terrible choice which tore her world apart. Her haunting and poignant story brings to life a period of strife and rapid social change, and evokes the struggles of those who lived in poverty and have been forgotten by history. In this fictional found memoir, novelist Alice Jolly uses the astonishing voice of Mary Ann to recreate history as seen from a woman's perspective and to give joyful, poetic voice to the silenced women of the past.
What the Eye Doesn't See
Author: Alice Jolly
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1912618982
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
Disgraced Tory politician, Max, is unable to shake off the whiff of scandal following the suspicious death of his best friend's wife. His daughter, Maggie, believes she witnessed something which confirms Max's guilt – but she has told no one what she saw that terrible night. Max's mother, Nanda, living an unconventional life in a ramshackle cottage in Gloucestershire, observes it all with the detachment of one who is nearing her death. As these three characters move through a crucial few months, events unfold in their alternating voices, and so the truth behind the headlines gradually emerges. In this assured and acute observation of ordinary lives under extraordinary pressure, Alice Jolly explores the complex nature of the bond between mother and son, father and daughter, and examines what happens when that bond is stretched to breaking point and the most basic loyalties are called into question.
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1912618982
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
Disgraced Tory politician, Max, is unable to shake off the whiff of scandal following the suspicious death of his best friend's wife. His daughter, Maggie, believes she witnessed something which confirms Max's guilt – but she has told no one what she saw that terrible night. Max's mother, Nanda, living an unconventional life in a ramshackle cottage in Gloucestershire, observes it all with the detachment of one who is nearing her death. As these three characters move through a crucial few months, events unfold in their alternating voices, and so the truth behind the headlines gradually emerges. In this assured and acute observation of ordinary lives under extraordinary pressure, Alice Jolly explores the complex nature of the bond between mother and son, father and daughter, and examines what happens when that bond is stretched to breaking point and the most basic loyalties are called into question.
Between the Regions of Kindness
Author: Alice Jolly
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783525002
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 471
Book Description
Coventry, 1941. The morning after one of the worst nights of the Blitz. Twenty-two-year-old Rose enters the remains of a bombed house to find her best friend dead. Shocked and confused, she makes a split-second decision that will reverberate for generations to come. More than fifty years later, in modern-day Brighton, Rose’s granddaughter Lara waits for the return of her eighteen-year-old son Jay. Reckless and idealistic, he has gone to Iraq to stand on a conflict line as an unarmed witness to peace. Lara holds her parents, Mollie and Rufus, partly responsible for Jay’s departure. But in her attempts to explain their thwarted passions, she finds all her assumptions about her own life are called into question. Then into this damaged family come two strangers – Oliver, a former faith healer, and Jemmy, a young woman devastated by the loss of a baby. Together they help to establish a partial peace – but at what cost?
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783525002
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 471
Book Description
Coventry, 1941. The morning after one of the worst nights of the Blitz. Twenty-two-year-old Rose enters the remains of a bombed house to find her best friend dead. Shocked and confused, she makes a split-second decision that will reverberate for generations to come. More than fifty years later, in modern-day Brighton, Rose’s granddaughter Lara waits for the return of her eighteen-year-old son Jay. Reckless and idealistic, he has gone to Iraq to stand on a conflict line as an unarmed witness to peace. Lara holds her parents, Mollie and Rufus, partly responsible for Jay’s departure. But in her attempts to explain their thwarted passions, she finds all her assumptions about her own life are called into question. Then into this damaged family come two strangers – Oliver, a former faith healer, and Jemmy, a young woman devastated by the loss of a baby. Together they help to establish a partial peace – but at what cost?
Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves
Author: Rachel Malik
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241976103
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 2018** 'A surprisingly touching account of hidden lives forced out of the shadows' Sunday Times One day in 1940 Rene Hargreaves walks out on her family and the city to take a position as a Land Girl at the remote Starlight farm. There she will live with and help lonely farmer Elsie Boston. At first Elsie and Rene are unsure of one another - strangers from different worlds. But over time they each come to depend on the other. They become inseparable. Until the day a visitor from Rene's past arrives and their careful, secluded life is thrown into confusion. Suddenly, all they have built together is threatened. What will they do to protect themselves? And are they prepared for the consequences? 'So lovely, gentle yet enthralling' Claire Fuller 'Quietly beautiful and brilliant. This is no bucolic idyll but an unfolding of a plot that constantly twists and turns and surprises. A truly wonderful, memorable novel' Judges of the Walter Scott Prize 2018
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241976103
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 2018** 'A surprisingly touching account of hidden lives forced out of the shadows' Sunday Times One day in 1940 Rene Hargreaves walks out on her family and the city to take a position as a Land Girl at the remote Starlight farm. There she will live with and help lonely farmer Elsie Boston. At first Elsie and Rene are unsure of one another - strangers from different worlds. But over time they each come to depend on the other. They become inseparable. Until the day a visitor from Rene's past arrives and their careful, secluded life is thrown into confusion. Suddenly, all they have built together is threatened. What will they do to protect themselves? And are they prepared for the consequences? 'So lovely, gentle yet enthralling' Claire Fuller 'Quietly beautiful and brilliant. This is no bucolic idyll but an unfolding of a plot that constantly twists and turns and surprises. A truly wonderful, memorable novel' Judges of the Walter Scott Prize 2018
The Company She Keeps
Author: Mary McCarthy
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1480438340
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
The celebrated author of The Group offers a “clever, witty, polished” portrait of the 1940s NYC literary bohemia she knew so well in this debut novel (The New York Times). Margaret Sargent is young and fearless, a deep thinker inspired by the bohemian energy that abounds in New York City in the years leading up to the Second World War. With careless abandon, she destroys her marriage and numerous love affairs as she moves through the social circles of artists and writers, playing at the fringes of political extremism. She is an enigma, often wanton and frivolous, but possessing intelligence and a razor-sharp wit, as well as a troubling core of inner darkness, self-doubt, and puzzling tendencies toward self-destruction. For Margaret, urban life in the 1930s is an ongoing adventure—ever-changing, always surprising, and deeply, profoundly unsatisfying. Mary McCarthy, author of the bestselling American classic The Group, burst boldly onto the literary scene with her provocative debut, The Company She Keeps. A brilliant, stylistically inventive novel, it offers a rich portrait of a truly fascinating protagonist in six revealing episodes. Love her, despise her, or fear for her, you will never forget Margaret Sargent. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author’s estate.
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1480438340
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
The celebrated author of The Group offers a “clever, witty, polished” portrait of the 1940s NYC literary bohemia she knew so well in this debut novel (The New York Times). Margaret Sargent is young and fearless, a deep thinker inspired by the bohemian energy that abounds in New York City in the years leading up to the Second World War. With careless abandon, she destroys her marriage and numerous love affairs as she moves through the social circles of artists and writers, playing at the fringes of political extremism. She is an enigma, often wanton and frivolous, but possessing intelligence and a razor-sharp wit, as well as a troubling core of inner darkness, self-doubt, and puzzling tendencies toward self-destruction. For Margaret, urban life in the 1930s is an ongoing adventure—ever-changing, always surprising, and deeply, profoundly unsatisfying. Mary McCarthy, author of the bestselling American classic The Group, burst boldly onto the literary scene with her provocative debut, The Company She Keeps. A brilliant, stylistically inventive novel, it offers a rich portrait of a truly fascinating protagonist in six revealing episodes. Love her, despise her, or fear for her, you will never forget Margaret Sargent. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author’s estate.
The Rising of Bella Casey
Author: Mary Morrissy
Publisher: The O'Brien Press
ISBN: 1847176135
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
'a wonderful book from one of our finest writers' Colum McCann Bella is a bright, clever girl who trains as a school teacher, determined to escape the limitations of her genteel impoverishment and become a "mistress of her own life". However, the manager of her school, the Rev Archibald Leeper, a married clergyman, develops a morbid attachment to her, which is to colour the rest of her life. Leeper places Bella in an untenable position; her only escape is to seduce a young army corporal, Nicholas Beaver, to hide the fact that her reputation has been ruined by the clergyman. She marries Nicholas and they have five children. However, when Nicholas dies at the age of 40 from syphilis, Bella realizes belatedly that she is not the only one who has been keeping sexual secrets. Bella Casey was the sister of the playwright, Sean O'Casey. Tellingly, though, her brother chose to kill her off prematurely in his autobiography – at least 10 years before her actual demise.
Publisher: The O'Brien Press
ISBN: 1847176135
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
'a wonderful book from one of our finest writers' Colum McCann Bella is a bright, clever girl who trains as a school teacher, determined to escape the limitations of her genteel impoverishment and become a "mistress of her own life". However, the manager of her school, the Rev Archibald Leeper, a married clergyman, develops a morbid attachment to her, which is to colour the rest of her life. Leeper places Bella in an untenable position; her only escape is to seduce a young army corporal, Nicholas Beaver, to hide the fact that her reputation has been ruined by the clergyman. She marries Nicholas and they have five children. However, when Nicholas dies at the age of 40 from syphilis, Bella realizes belatedly that she is not the only one who has been keeping sexual secrets. Bella Casey was the sister of the playwright, Sean O'Casey. Tellingly, though, her brother chose to kill her off prematurely in his autobiography – at least 10 years before her actual demise.
The Bird Skinner
Author: Alice Greenway
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802193633
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
On a weather-beaten island in Maine, a birder and WWII vet confronts his past in this “atmospheric and engrossing” novel (People). After a recent leg amputation, ornithologist and World War II veteran Jim Kennoway retreats to an island in Penobscot Bay, off the coast of Maine. All he wants is to drink, smoke, and be left alone. From his perch, he listens for birdcalls and thinks back on his youth, his romance with his now deceased wife, his work for the American Museum of Natural History, and earlier, for Naval Intelligence in the South Pacific. Thirty years ago, while stationed in the Solomon Islands, Jim befriended Tosca, a young islander who worked with him as a scout. Now Tosca has sent his daughter to stay with Jim before she begins premedical studies at Yale. She arrives to Jim’s consternation, bringing with her a flood of troubling memories. Yet she will capture his heart and that of everyone she meets, irrevocably changing their lives. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Award for First Fiction, Alice Greenway’s second novel is “a beautiful, ultimately painful story as haunting as its settings” (Publishers Weekly).
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802193633
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
On a weather-beaten island in Maine, a birder and WWII vet confronts his past in this “atmospheric and engrossing” novel (People). After a recent leg amputation, ornithologist and World War II veteran Jim Kennoway retreats to an island in Penobscot Bay, off the coast of Maine. All he wants is to drink, smoke, and be left alone. From his perch, he listens for birdcalls and thinks back on his youth, his romance with his now deceased wife, his work for the American Museum of Natural History, and earlier, for Naval Intelligence in the South Pacific. Thirty years ago, while stationed in the Solomon Islands, Jim befriended Tosca, a young islander who worked with him as a scout. Now Tosca has sent his daughter to stay with Jim before she begins premedical studies at Yale. She arrives to Jim’s consternation, bringing with her a flood of troubling memories. Yet she will capture his heart and that of everyone she meets, irrevocably changing their lives. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Award for First Fiction, Alice Greenway’s second novel is “a beautiful, ultimately painful story as haunting as its settings” (Publishers Weekly).
Dead Babies and Seaside Towns
Author: Alice Jolly
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783521600
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 387
Book Description
When Alice Jolly's second child was stillborn and all subsequent attempts to have another baby failed, she began to consider every possible option, no matter how unorthodox. Shot through with humour and full of hope, Dead Babies and Seaside Towns is an intensely personal account of the search for an alternative way to create a family. As she battles through miscarriage, IVF and failed adoption attempts, Alice finds comfort in the faded charm of Britain's crumbling seaside towns. The journey ultimately leads her and her husband to a small town in Minnesota, and to two remarkable women who offer to make the impossible possible. In this beautifully written book, Alice Jolly describes with a novelist's skill the events that many others have lived through – even if they may feel compelled to keep them hidden. Her decision not to hide but to share them, without a trace of self-pity, turns Dead Babies and Seaside Towns into a universal story: one that begins in tragedy but ends in joy.
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783521600
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 387
Book Description
When Alice Jolly's second child was stillborn and all subsequent attempts to have another baby failed, she began to consider every possible option, no matter how unorthodox. Shot through with humour and full of hope, Dead Babies and Seaside Towns is an intensely personal account of the search for an alternative way to create a family. As she battles through miscarriage, IVF and failed adoption attempts, Alice finds comfort in the faded charm of Britain's crumbling seaside towns. The journey ultimately leads her and her husband to a small town in Minnesota, and to two remarkable women who offer to make the impossible possible. In this beautifully written book, Alice Jolly describes with a novelist's skill the events that many others have lived through – even if they may feel compelled to keep them hidden. Her decision not to hide but to share them, without a trace of self-pity, turns Dead Babies and Seaside Towns into a universal story: one that begins in tragedy but ends in joy.
The Ninth Hour
Author: Alice McDermott
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374712174
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
A magnificent new novel from one of America’s finest writers—a powerfully affecting story spanning the twentieth century of a widow and her daughter and the nuns who serve their Irish-American community in Brooklyn. On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens a gas tap in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove—to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his pregnant wife—that “the hours of his life . . . belonged to himself alone.” In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Saviour, an aging nun, a Little Nursing Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child. In Catholic Brooklyn in the early part of the twentieth century, decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man’s brief existence, and yet his suicide, though never spoken of, reverberates through many lives—testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations. Rendered with remarkable delicacy, heart, and intelligence, Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374712174
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
A magnificent new novel from one of America’s finest writers—a powerfully affecting story spanning the twentieth century of a widow and her daughter and the nuns who serve their Irish-American community in Brooklyn. On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens a gas tap in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove—to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his pregnant wife—that “the hours of his life . . . belonged to himself alone.” In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Saviour, an aging nun, a Little Nursing Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child. In Catholic Brooklyn in the early part of the twentieth century, decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man’s brief existence, and yet his suicide, though never spoken of, reverberates through many lives—testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations. Rendered with remarkable delicacy, heart, and intelligence, Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.
Stranger, Baby
Author: Emily Berry
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571331335
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 77
Book Description
Emily Berry's Dear Boy was described as a 'blazing debut', winning the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2013. Stranger, Baby, its follow-up, is marked by the same sense of fantasy and play, estrangement and edgy humour for which she has become known. But these poems delve deeper again, in their off-kilter and often painful encounter with childhood loss. This is a book of mourning, recrimination, exhilaration and 'oceanic feeling': 'A meditation on a want that can never be answered.'
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571331335
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 77
Book Description
Emily Berry's Dear Boy was described as a 'blazing debut', winning the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2013. Stranger, Baby, its follow-up, is marked by the same sense of fantasy and play, estrangement and edgy humour for which she has become known. But these poems delve deeper again, in their off-kilter and often painful encounter with childhood loss. This is a book of mourning, recrimination, exhilaration and 'oceanic feeling': 'A meditation on a want that can never be answered.'