The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf
A Novel
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Back in print, an astonishing novel of art, obsession, and the secrets kept by two very different women
In Kathryn Davis’s second novel, Frances Thorn, waitress and single parent of twins, finds herself transformed by the dazzling magnetism of Helle Ten Brix, an elderly Danish composer of operas. At the heart of what binds them is “The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf,” the Hans Christian Andersen tale of a prideful girl who, in order to spare her new shoes, uses a loaf of bread, intended as a gift for her parents, as a stepping-stone, and ends up sinking to the bottom of a bog. Helle’s final opera, based on this tale and unfinished at the time of her death, is willed to Frances—a life-changing legacy that compels Frances to unravel the mysteries of Helle’s story and, in so doing, to enter the endlessly revolving, intricate world of her operas.
The ravishing beauty and matchless wit that have characterized Davis’s work from the beginning are here on full display. The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf is a novel as thrilling in its virtuosity as it is moving in its homage to the power of art, a power that changes lives forever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her second novel, Kafka Prize winner Davis ( Labrador ) examines the rather labyrinthine friendship of two women, Danish composer Helle Ten Brix and 30-ish airport-diner waitress Frances Thorn, whose lives become entangled in upstate New York. The story opens with Helle's death; her will stipulates that most of her estate go to Frances's 10-year-old twin daughters Flo and Ruby, while her unfinished final opera is left to their mother. (The composition is based on a tragic Hans Christian Andersen story from which the novel takes its title.) Flashbacks to turn-of-the-century Denmark and the unhappy Ten Brix family (seen through Helle's not always reliable or truthful eyes) provide an intriguing contrast to the modern American story line, although they can be confusing--as can the abundant musical references for readers who are not experts in the field. Davis is an accomplished but sometimes heavy-handed writer; the book's two final climaxes seem strained and overly dramatic rather than organically derived from the story.
