Tamara Drewe - Softcover

Simmonds, Posy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0547154127 ISBN 13: 9780547154121

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2008

Synopsis

Posy Simmonds, Britain’s best-loved cartoonist and the author of Gemma Bovery, has now created the irresistible Tamara Drewe, a graphic novel that delightfully skewers modern mores and manners with great wit and understanding for the foibles of humanity.
Loosely inspired by Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, Tamara Drewe follows a year at Stonefield, a bucolic writer’s retreat run by Beth and Nicholas Hardiman, where Dr. Glen Larson, an American professor and struggling novelist, is staying. The ambitious young Tamara Drewe, mourning the loss of her mother, has returned to her family home nearby. A bookish girl not so long ago, Tamara is now a gossipy columnist at a London paper and undeniably sexy. She quickly has every man in the vicinity—Glen, Nicholas, and the handyman, Andy—falling at her feet, while teenage best friends Casey and Jody become infatuated with Tamara and her ex-rock-star fiancé, Ben. Meanwhile, long-suffering Beth sees to the needs of the writers while managing the farm, the household, and the many affairs of her husband, a best-selling detective novelist.
Perhaps even more satisfying than your favorite nineteenth-century novel, with its fine, expressive drawings, deft storytelling, and nods to both the past and the present, yet unlike anything that has come before, Tamara Drewe is that rare graphic novel for grownups.

Posy Simmonds is the author of many books for adults and children, including the widely acclaimed Gemma Bovery. A. N. Wilson called Gemma Bovery a “work of genius” and more than one reviewer suggested that it should be entered for the Booker Prize. Simmonds has contributed a series of weekly cartoon strips to the UK’s Guardian since 1977 and has won international awards for her work. She lives in London.

About this title

Review:

'The cartooning is beautiful...let's hope there aren't 7 years until the next' -- Forbiddenplanet.co.uk

'A very English riposte to the transatlantic autobiographical tendency... a wonderfully precise ironist of provincial life' -- Telegraph

'Posy Simmonds is a true child of Hogarth, her accomplished cartoons a merciless commentary on the way we live now.'
-- Sunday Times

'Simmonds is the laureate of English middle-class muddle. A cartoon Turner.' -- Mail on Sunday

'Simmonds manages to be both sympathetic and merciless... she has a novelistic insight and ear for dialogue' -- Daily Telegraph

'The way Simmonds captures body language, sideways glances and the landscape at different times of the year is breathtaking' -- Roger Sabine, Observer

'wonderfully witty and mercilessly observed [...] Simmonds's sly and entrancing drawings prove that pictures can paint a thousand words.' -- Daily Mail

`Anyone who still thinks comic books aren't for grown-ups should have a look at Tamara Drewe'' -- Evening Standard

`The argument over whether the graphic novel can compete with the literary novel would,...now seem to be over.' -- Nicholas Lezard, Scotsman

`as clever and absorbing as any novel but more entertaining'. -- Sunday Herald `Books of the Year'

Book Description:

A brilliant new graphic novel inspired by Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, by the author of the widely acclaimed Gemma Bovery

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0547154127
• ISBN 13: 9780547154121
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 136