Civil & Strange
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- 8,99 €
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- 8,99 €
Descripción editorial
Longing to escape an unhappy marriage and an interfering mother, Ellen hopes to recapture the magic of her childhood when she returns to the small village where she spent her summer holidays. Her elderly uncle welcomes her with the rather mystifying advice to play it 'civil and strange' - meaning she should be polite to people, but keep her distance.
Ellen makes good friends and she finds out how sustaining village life can be. But she also sees its narrow side when she, tentatively, starts a new relationship and becomes the focus of gossip. Her uncle's words resonate in a new way and she starts to question what she's doing with her life and whether she's made the right decision in abandoning city life.
But as the events of this tumultuous year play out, it becomes clear to Ellen that starting over again isn't about where you are but what's going on inside . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This richly detailed and deceptively simple American debut centers on Ellen Hughes, a 38-year-old teacher from Dublin who leaves her unraveling marriage to a callow PR man to live in the village where she spent childhood summers with her cousins. Ellen buys and renovates the cousins' crumbling homestead, all the while trying to exorcise the demons of her old life and gain purchase in her new one. Aonghusa stocks the novel with the usual suspects: a charismatic young contractor; a crusty but charming mentor (in this case, Ellen's uncle, Matt); a wise, older woman (Beatrice, who lost one of her sons to suicide) and an insecure but plucky heroine. This is not to say that Aonghusa's work (as opposed to her novel's structure) is riddled with convention. Where a less honest writer might whisk past the unhappiness of uprooting oneself to get to the juicy stuff, there are moments of real ennui in Ellen's new, rural life, and Aonghusa isn't afraid to depict Ellen as awkward and less-than-smoking-hot in a way that isn't gimmicky. The refreshing blasts of reality give the book emotional heft, and the credible romance that eventually develops is a break from the standard mold.
