Isobel, a widow of a certain age and long-time resident of a small fishing village on the coast of Maine, decides she requires additional income to support her desire for first-class travel. She answers an ad for a hired mercenary to an ex-Mafia don, first testing her homicidal capabilities at home and later, with her niece Jo in tow, moving on to assignments in Montana to dispatch a Japanese harvester of children’s body parts, in Stockholm to remove a Russian anthrax intermediary, and, in Bermuda to “put paid” to an English high-class pimp. She and Jo, of course, savor the fine accommodations and gastronomic rewards of their efforts, but will they receive their comeuppance? And what of the mysterious gentleman who pops up at each of their assignments?
AN ARTIST'S PASSION Young Englishwoman Isobel Jefferson is delighted to gain employment as an au pair to a couple in Milan, certain the history and romance of Italy will inspire her artistic talent. But instead of nurturing dreams, Isobel is trapped in the nightmare world of her employer, Nina Fischer, an artist and Holocaust victim now descending into madness. Running from Milan, Isobel enters the glittery world of 1960s Italian society, where she meets Furio Bonetti, scion of a powerful political family, whom she marries. But bliss is short-lived, and soon Isobel finds herself alone, pregnant, and terrified, struggling to build a life from broken dreams. Love and laughter await, as does tragedy. But it is the haunting presence of Nina who will ultimately bring Isobel full circle--to her destiny and her talent.... "AN INTRIGUING NOVEL...RECOMMENDED." --Library Journal
Isobel Callaghan is struggling to make a career as a writer in Sydney. She is isolated, poor and hungry, and fears she's going mad. Leaving her room in a boarding house in search of food, she has a breakdown on the way to the corner shop. Waking in hospital, Isobel learns that she will be confined to a sanatorium in the Blue Mountains. There, among the motley assortment of patients, and with the aid of great works of literature, she will confront the horrors of her past. But can she find a way to face the future? Confronting and compassionate, profound and funny, the second Isobel Callaghan novel is every bit as brilliant as its much-loved predecessor. It confirmed Amy Witting as one of the finest Australian writers of her time. Amy Witting was born in Sydney in 1918. She attended Sydney University, then taught French and English in state schools. Beginning late in life she published six novels, including The Visit, I for Isobel, Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop and Maria's War; two collections of short stories; two books of verse, Travel Diary and Beauty is the Straw; and her Collected Poems. She had numerous poems and short stories published in magazines such as Quadrant and the New Yorker. Her acclaimed short fiction is collected in the volume Faces and Voices. Witting was awarded the 1993 Patrick White Prize. Isobel on the way to the Corner Shop won the Age Book of the Year Award. Amy Witting died in 2001. 'Her reflections on human nature are eloquently drawn, intimate, compassionate and witty.' Australian Amy Witting is comparable to Jean Rhys, but she has more starch, or vinegar. The effect is bracing.' New Yorker '[Witting] lays bare with surgical precision the dynamics of families, sibling, students in coffee shops, office coteries. One sometimes feels positively winded with unsettling insights. There is something relentless, almost unnerving in her anatomising of foibles, fears obsessions, private shame, the nature of loneliness, the nature of panic.' Janette Turner Hospital 'A beautifully but unobtrusively honed style, a marvellous ear for dialogue, a generous understanding of the complex waywardness of men and women.' Andrew Riemer ‘Sparkling prose and extraordinary ability to enter the minds of a wide variety of characters.' A Reader's Guide to Australian Fiction ‘Quietly brilliant...Witting’s characterizations are staggeringly sharp—it is hard to imagine a novel more keenly observed—simultaneously heartbreaking and (subtly) hilarious, not because they’re exaggerated, but because they are so unsettlingly, overwhelmingly true...A compassionate masterpiece.’ STARRED Review, Kirkus
This timely book participates in the reshaping of our collective imagination being undertaken by women writers. In a set of readings that examines the work of Audrey Thomas, Margaret Atwood, Jane Rule, Alice Munro, Marian Engel, and Mavis Gallant, Lorna Irvine brings out the stories within the stories that overturn traditional conventions for writing and reading literary texts. Here is a book that will help inform opinions on a topic of growing interest.
This collection of essays examines the various ways in which the Homeric epics have been responded to, reworked, and rewritten by women writers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Beginning in 1914 with the First World War, it charts this understudied strand of the history of Homeric reception over the subsequent century up to the present day, analysing the extraordinary responses both to the Odyssey and to the Iliad by women from around the world. The backgrounds of these authors and the genres they employ - memoir, poetry, children's literature, rap, novels - testify not only to the plasticity of Homeric epic, but also to the widening social classes to whom Homer appeals, and it is unsurprising to see the myriad ways in which women writers across the globe have played their part in the story of Homer's afterlife. From surrealism to successive waves of feminism to creative futures, Homer's footprint can be seen in a multitude of different literary and political movements, and the essays in this volume bring an array of critical approaches to bear on the work of authors ranging from H.D. and Simone Weil to Christa Wolf, Margaret Atwood, and Kate Tempest. Students and scholars of not only classics, but also translation studies, comparative literature, and women's writing will find much to interest them, while the volume's concluding reflections by Emily Wilson on her new translation of the Odyssey are an apt reminder to all of just how open a text can be, and of how great a difference can be made by a woman's voice.
Over the course of a dozen years, Scottish plant collector Isobel Wylie Hutchison (1889?1982) explored northern latitudes from the Lofoten Islands of Norway to the far reaches of the American Aleutians. To achieve her goals, she traveled by any means available, from rowboats in Greenland to trading schooners and coast-guard vessels in Alaska. When necessary, she journeyed by snowshoe or sled in pursuit of her botanical specimens, accompanied only by strangers who served as guides. In Flowers in the Snow, Gwyneth Hoyle paints a vivid portrait of a woman gloriously out of the step with the conventions of her time.
She wanted to forget; to let this atmosphere of tremendous isolation consume her. Haunted by demons past and present, geologist Ann Salter seeks sanctuary on the exotic island of Lanzarote. There, she meets charismatic author Richard Parry and indigenous potter Domingo, and together they explore the island. Ann’s encounters with the island’s hidden treasures becomes a journey deep inside herself, as she struggles to understand who she was, who she is, and who she wants to be. Set against a panoramic backdrop of dramatic island landscapes and Spanish colonial history, The Drago Tree is an intriguing tale of betrayal, conquest and love.
Standing beside Elise’s grave, Siobhan Montrell remembers how her mother finally blew the perfect smoke ring on the day that Elise disappeared. Remembers the day that would change and define her life forever. The toddler's body was found in the river near Gables Guesthouse. Only eleven years old at the time, Siobhan has carried the guilt of Elise’s death with her since that day. Twenty-eight years later, Siobhan returns to Rachley Island, having inherited Gables -- guesthouse and family home -- from her aunt. Cleaning the property to prepare it for sale, she discovers an old book in which her aunt used to draw and write, revealing the truth about the tragic drowning. The River Child is a tale of grief and guilt, deceit and secrets, and ultimately forgiveness.
