Mary George of Allnorthover
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- USD 1.99
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- USD 1.99
Descripción editorial
Lavinia Greenlaw’s mesmerising debut novel about growing up in the surreal banality of mid-’70s Essex.
Lavinia Greenlaw puts before us the monochrome, immemorial middle England of the 1970s in all its dowdy glory, and has us see through the mercurial, bewitching Mary George’s eyes how a seemingly static landscape is suddenly illuminated by the most vivid bursts of energy, colour and drama. Punk’s torch flares into life and singes the fringes of England. Mary George bears witness and burns brighter still: she is more memorable than even the extraordinary events around her, and the reader will find it devastatingly hard to leave her company at the end of this exceptional debut about growing up under the shadow of an unknowable, inescapable small-town mystery.
Reviews
‘A poet’s eye clearly informs Greenlaw’s beautifully observed portrait of Seventies provincial life. In prose layered like paint, Greenlaw conjures up the period through details that will strike endless chords with readers who grew up at that time … This is a suggestive, elusive novel, which achieves a magical effect by the gradual accumulation of images.’ Vogue
‘This is a terrific first novel, a meteorological force in its own right.’ Evening Standard
‘A composed and sensuous first novel.’ Financial TImes
‘A spacious and compassionate read.’ Time Out
‘What is most impressive, ultimately, is the strength and solidity of the house Greenlaw builds around the reader: every brick carefully aligned, necessary and true.’ Independent on Sunday
About the author
Lavinia Greenlaw is the author of two books of poetry, ‘Night Photograph’ (1993), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread and Forward awards, and ‘A World Where News Travelled Slowly’ (1997), which won the Forward Prize. She is currently working at the Poetry Library, having previously been Writer-in-Residence at the Science Museum, at a law practice, and in several schools. She lives in north London.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Precise, lyrical prose distinguishes London poet Greenlaw's haunting debut novel, set in a dying English country village in the 1970s. British reticence and punk music provide the backdrop for the story of 17-year-old Mary George, a young woman growing up without direction. When Tom Hepple, a local who has spent the last decade in psychiatric care, returns to Allnorthover, he seeks out his childhood home, long since buried under the town's reservoir. An optical trick leads him to believe that he sees Mary walking on water above his home, a belief spurred by both his mental turmoil and the burden of family trauma. Although Tom's twin brother and other of his family members try to deflect Tom's obsession, he compulsively pursues the girl. Meanwhile, Mary simply tries to remain invisible as she contends with her own insecurities. Both of her parents are off-kilter: her architect father lives like a recluse outside town, and her mother pleads with Mary to remember her father's indiscretions and his past dealings with the Hepples (referring to a scandal that the reader learns about only gradually) while assuring her of Tom's harmlessness. Mary is also figuring out how to belong to a family, to a group of friends, to a boyfriend and her search dredges up further secrets and class tensions. At town festivals and rave shows, the pre-goth Mary and a band of sympathetic characters move slowly in different directions, but also toward an inexorable and tragic denouement. Greenlaw sets her secret-filled story in a meticulously realistic setting a village where all the families are intertwined by shared history and where fuel shortages and power cuts signal the disruption that will follow. Rights sold in Germany and the Netherlands.
