The House Of Splendid Isolation


Book Description

'A powerful, complex fable, mysteriously conceived and deeply felt . . . Brilliant' Irish Times When Josie, confined to bed in her dilapidated country mansion, sees the door swing back and the hooded face appear, she knows who it is. Into her world comes McGreevy, bloody crusader for a united Ireland, who has chosen her house for sanctuary. Within the incarcerating walls of the house, an undercurrent of love develops between two people who think differently but feel the same. Destiny has flung them together and, as the police net closes in, fear dawns in Josie that McGreevy has used her house for more than refuge. And there may be no escape for either of them. 'A writer at the height of her powers' Tatler 'A work of insight, sympathy and breath-holding suspense' Daily Mail 'O'Brien at her shrewd and lyrical best' Sunday Times 'So well written you won't be disappointed whatever you are looking for' Literary Review 'A sharp and thoughtful depiction of the modern Irish question . . . poetically written' The Times




Wild Decembers


Book Description

'A gripping love story which will keep the reader guessing to the end and delight Edna O'Brien's many fans' Literary Review When a young man arrives from Australia to claim his inheritance, he changes a small Irish town for ever. Joseph Brennan sees Michael Bugler, the returned exile, as a threat. And for Breege, Joseph's younger sister, Bugler is an irresistible stranger to whose charms she must not succumb for fear of betraying her brother. A love-hate story on many levels, Wild Decembers explores the depth and darkness at the root of all ownership. With a rich and comic cast of characters, this primal story is a complex and daring work, fixed in a time and place, yet imbued with the permanence of myth. 'The power of the writing and the dazzle of the images make the book a resounding success' Dublin Evening News 'Intense and poetic' Independent 'She is one of our bravest and best novelists' Irish Times 'She's an exceptionally good writer. Those elegant, tumbling words, and the conviction that the writer is making a really important point' Sunday Tribune




Down by the River


Book Description

Down by the River is a newly reissued novel from Edna O’Brien, the author of Girl—“one of the most celebrated writers in the English language” (NPR’s Weekend Edition). Set in the author’s native Ireland, a powerful and passionate novel about a young girl who becomes pregnant by her father—a situation made worse when it becomes fodder for the gossip mill of church, state, and the town square.




Mother Ireland


Book Description

"Mother Ireland" includes seven essays seamlessly woven into an autobiographical tapestry. In her lyrical, sensuous voice, O'Brien describes growing up in rural County Clare, from her days in a convent school to her first kiss to her eventual migration to England. Weaving her own personal history with the history of Ireland, she effortlessly melds local customs and ancient lore with the fascinating people and events that shaped he young life. The result is a colorful and timeless narrative that perfectly captures the heart and soul of this harshly beautiful country.




A Thousand Splendid Suns


Book Description

A riveting and powerful story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship and an indestructible love




Saints and Sinners


Book Description

With her inimitable gift for describing the workings of the heart and mind, Edna O'Brien introduces us to a vivid new cast of restless, searching people who-whether in the Irish countryside or London or New York-remind us of our own humanity. In Send My Roots Rain, Miss Gilhooley, a librarian, waits in the lobby of a posh Dublin hotel-expecting to meet a celebrated poet while reflecting on the great love who disappointed her. The Irish workers of "The Shovel Kings" have pipe dreams of becoming millionaires in London, but long for their quickly changing homeland-exiles in both places. "Green Georgette" is a searing anatomy of class, through the eyes of a little girl; "Old Wounds" illuminates the importance of family and memory in old age. In language that is always bold and vital, Edna O'Brien pays tribute to the universal forces that rule our lives.




Girl


Book Description

Girl, Edna O’Brien’s hotly anticipated new novel, envisages the lives of the Boko Haram girls in a masterpiece of violence and tenderness. I was a girl once, but not anymore. So begins Girl, Edna O’Brien’s harrowing portrayal of the young women abducted by Boko Haram. Set in the deep countryside of northeast Nigeria, this is a brutal story of incarceration, horror, and hunger; a hair-raising escape into the manifold terrors of the forest; and a descent into the labyrinthine bureaucracy and hostility awaiting a victim who returns home with a child blighted by enemy blood. From one of the century's greatest living authors, Girl is an unforgettable story of one victim’s astonishing survival, and her unflinching faith in the redemption of the human heart.




Country Girl


Book Description

"Country Girl is Edna O'Brien's exquisite account of her dashing, barrier-busting, up-and-down life."-National Public Radio When Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation. Starting with O'Brien's birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her story moves through convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, the wild parties of the '60s in London, and encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans. There is love and unrequited love, and the glamour of trips to America as a celebrated writer and the guest of Jackie Onassis and Hillary Clinton. Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have imprinted upon and enhanced one lifetime.




The Country Girls: Three Novels and an Epilogue


Book Description

A treasure of world literature back in print, featuring a new introduction by Eimear McBride This omnibus edition includes the novels The Country Girls, The Lonely Girl, and Girls in Their Married Bliss. The country girls are Caithleen “Kate” Brady and Bridget “Baba” Brennan, and their story begins in the repressive atmosphere of a small village in the west of Ireland in the years following World War II. Kate is a romantic, looking for love; Baba is a survivor. Setting out to conquer the bright lights of Dublin, they are rewarded with comical miscommunications, furtive liaisons, bad faith, bad luck, bad sex, and compromise; marrying for the wrong reasons, betraying for the wrong reasons, fighting in their separate ways against the overwhelming wave of expectations forced upon "girls" of every era. The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue charts unflinchingly the pattern of women’s lives, from the high spirits of youth to the chill of middle age, from hope to despair, in remarkable prose swinging from blunt and brutal to whimsical and lyrical. It is a saga both painful and hilarious, and remains one of the major accomplishments of Edna O’Brien’s extraordinary career.




A Pagan Place


Book Description

In a diary-like stream of image, impression, expression and experience, this book catalogues the mundane agony of the poor Irish child confronted at every turn with abundant opportunities for a sensational, scandalous and steadfast descent into eternal fire and damnation.