Prosperity Drive - Softcover

Morrissy, Mary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0224102192 ISBN 13: 9780224102193

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2016

Synopsis

All the characters in this mesmerising book begin their journeys on Prosperity Drive. Everything radiates out - often internationally - from this suburban Dublin street, and everything eventually returns to it. It is an Ireland in miniature. Like an exploded novel, Prosperity Drive is laid out in stories, linked by its characters who appear and disappear, bump into each other in chance encounters, and join up again through love, marriage or memory. The form of Prosperity Drive reflects and embodies the theme of dislocation. Exploring family ties and small coincidences, the stories are united by recurring imagery, echoing a kind of collective unconscious, and the magnetic force of place. While each story is discrete, and stands perfectly alone, when read together they have an extraordinary cumulative effect. Through the central drama of the Elworthy family, the collection has a strong narrative arc, very similar to that of a novel, making explicit to the reader secrets withheld from the characters. A stunningly original construction, this journey in stories is very much like life itself: a series of circles and trajectories, a process of learning how to love and how to lose that love. Heartbreaking and hilarious in turn, always incisive and exquisitely written, this is a thrilling book by a major Irish writer.

About this title

Review:

"She is a true heir to Chekhov and the great writers... Her clear-eyed vision and her deep compassion, along with her lovely sense of the comic and her exceptional literary articulacy, make this an outstanding collection." (Éilís Ní Dhuibhne Irish Times)

"Mary Morrissy is a wonderful writer. These stories are entertaining and deft, so skilfully balanced and interwoven that when you begin to pick out the pattern it is a real moment of delight." (Hilary Mantel)

"Morrissy bewitches the reader with an immaculate yet irreverent turn of phrase, her imagination slanted at a rare angle." (Imogen Lycett-Green Daily Mail)

"Story by story [Morrissy] stitches together a hundred tiny plots, moving backwards and forwards across 60 years, and outwards to Italy, America, Australia and Vietnam... Morrissy proves herself a steady observer of the bleakness of everyday life, as well as when bleakness becomes catastrophe." (Hannah Rosefield Observer)

"One of the best Irish books you’ll read this year." (Sara Keating Sunday Business Post)

Book Description:

The gifted Irish writer returns to Cape with a stunning book of linked stories

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0224102192
• ISBN 13: 9780224102193
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288