Grandmother Wolf - Rilegato

Tyrrell, Patricia

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0297848968 ISBN 13: 9780297848967

Casa editrice: W&N, 2005

Riassunto

In a velvet-lined, treasure-filled room, in a house torn open by shelling that balances precariously on 'the line' dividing East and West Beirut, Madeleine lives out her days like a Lebanese Miss Havisham. Refusing to move out during all but the worst of the fighting, she bickers constantly with her long-suffering Arab maid, and enjoys tormenting her already-angry daughter and fussing over her militia-fighting son.

On the other side of the world, Madeleine's orphaned grandson Rick is summoned by his guardians and ordered to leave Seattle to stay with the grandmother he has never met. The troubled teenager has recently gone off the rails, and his guardians hope that the unbending old lady will instil some discipline into their wayward charge.

Madeleine gleefully awaits Rick's coming, anticipating the amusement she can derive from pulling the young tearaway back into line. But when he arrives, wide-eyed and idealistic, Madeleine is surprised by the feelings he provokes in her. Rick in turn is unprepared for the violence, chaos and colour of 1980s Beirut. But as grandmother and grandson begin to negotiate a tentative relationship, Rick finds both horror and love in the damaged city, and Madeleine is forced to shake off her long-preserved isolation as they find themselves sucked into the whirlwind of the civil war.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

Grandmother Wolf contains much of the stuff of the fast-paced action thriller, but Tyrrell shapes her combustible material into a quiet study of what brutality is and does, and how it may be survived...[a] finely wrought, slow-burning book. (Sheena Joughin TLS)

GRANDMOTHER WOLF also boasts robust characters, and examines blood ties, loyalty and love...Twists in the plot keep the reader surprised, and Tyrrell's strength lies in characters who embrace the moral expediencies of war. (Marianne Brace INDEPENDENT (11.8.05))

Tyrrell works her symbolism densely, and it is one of the virtues of her writing that this is so unobtrusive. Reading her book is like entering Madeleine's house, down its dark alleyway and through the ruined cinema, where images echo and what is revealed is all the more haunting for being viewed obliquely. (Anna Vaux SPECTATOR)

The violence and chaos of the 1980s Beirut forms the colourful backdrop to Patricia Tyrrell's absorbing second novel...Tyrrell creates a work of remarkable intensity, in which the conflicts between Eastern and Western cultures are mirrored in the tension between youth and old age. (YORKSHIRE EVENING POST (20.8.05))

Within this beautifully-written book with a well drawn and interesting plot it is revealed how every aspect of the war impacts on each member of the family...Tyrrell superbly illustrates how a young, rich and spoiled brat from the United States becomes an ordinary Beirut citizen...an extraordinarily good novel. (Tricia Summer TRIBUNE (26.8.05))

Descrizione del libro:

A vivid and engrossing novel from the author of THE RECKONING: an eccentric and embittered old woman and her idealistic American grandson struggle to forge a relationship in a city ripped apart by civil war.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: W&N
• Data di pubblicazione: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0297848968
• ISBN 13: 9780297848967
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 288