Miss Garnet's Angel - Softcover

Vickers, Salley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452282977 ISBN 13: 9780452282971

Publisher: Plume, 2002

Synopsis

After the death of her longtime friend Harriet, schoolteacher Julia Garnet takes an apartment in Venice for six months, falls in love for the first time with an art dealer named Carlo, and unravels the ancient story of Tobias and the Angel at her new church. A first novel. Reprint.

About this title

Review:

There is something very old-fashioned and reassuring about Sally Vickers' novel Miss Garnet's Angel. The themes, self-discovery and redemption have the air of a bygone age, despite the novel being set in contemporary Venice in a world of holiday apartment lets and Pizza Express-funded restoration works. Julia Garnet is a middle-aged woman who has been practising economies of the spirit for years. Hers is a closed-in world, dusty with Marx's theories and when her friend and flatmate of 30 years dies Julia decides to spend the six winter months in Venice to recuperate from her loss. Miss Garnet is a dignified, brusque heroine and Sally Vickers' prose is likewise unruffled and controlled. Miss Garnet's epiphanies are as quiet and subtle as the "oro pallido" (pale gold) light in early Italian Art because, of course, art plays a part in this Venetian tale of emotional reawakening. Julia is moved by the depiction of Raphael in Guardis Tobias and the Angel: "something rusty and hard shifted deep inside Julia Garnet as she stood absorbing the vivid dewy painting and the unmistakable compassion in the angel's bright glance." She falls in love with Carlo, an art historian with crinkly eyes, white hair and a moustache. There are trials and tribulations to be undergone, Julia must unlearn all her old regimented ways of life, and this brings about heart ache and hurt. However, Vickers handles this with delicate sympathy, giving Julia Garnet a new sensitive view of the world, and the reader a resonant story of transformation. --Eithne Farry

Review:

'Subtle, unexpected and haunting' Penelope Fitzgerald

'Very kind, very funny' John Bayley

'Writes like a haunted angel' The Times

'Rich, complex and haunting... she makes the ancient story as riveting as Miss Garnet's own adventures' Sunday Times

'The sort of novel I really enjoy' John Bayley

Reveals itself as a surprising exploration of the mysteries of imagination and faith' Joanna Trollope, Daily Telegraph Books of the Year

'A refreshing, gentle story' Anita Brookner, Spectator Books of the Year

'A subtle, witty tale' John de Falbe, Spectator Books of the Year

'Delightfully affecting' Julia Neuberger, Independent Books of the Year

'Destined for a long life' David Sexton, Evening Standard Books of the Year

'If you like Penelope Fitzgerald or Barbara Pym, try Salley Vickers' Sunday Telegraph

'Original and delightful' Woman's Journal
'It is a triumph' John Julius Norwich

'All lovers of Venice should read this book' The Spectator

About this edition

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0452282977
• ISBN 13: 9780452282971
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 342