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Riley, Gwendoline Opposed Positions ISBN 13: 9780224094238

Opposed Positions - Hardcover

 
9780224094238: Opposed Positions
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At thirty, Aislinn Kelly is an occasional novelist with a near-morbid attunement to the motives of those around her. Isolated, restless and stuck, she decamps to America - a default recourse - this time to an attic room in Indianapolis, to attempt once again the definitive act of self-salvage.

There are sharp memories to contend with as the summer heats up, and not least regarding her family history, now revealed as so botched and pitiful it seems it might yet cancel her out. She's spent years evading the attentions of her unstable, bullying father, only to find her mother now cowering in a second rancid marriage. There are also friendships lost or ailing: with bibulous playwright Karl, sly poet Erwin, depressed bookshop-wallah Bronagh, and Aislinn's best friend Cathy, who has recently found God... Finally her thoughts turn to her last encounter with Jim Schmidt, a man she's loved for ten years, hasn't seen for five, yet still has to consider her opposite number in life.

Opposed Positions is a startlingly frank novel about the human predicament, about love and its substitutes, disgraceful or otherwise. Some of these people want to be free - of themselves, of each other - and some have darker imperatives. Wry, shocking, perfectly observed and utterly heart-breaking, the novel moves towards its troubling conclusion: a painful appreciation of what it is we've come from, and what we might be heading for.

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Product Description:
HardCover. Pub Date: 05 May 2012 Pages: 240 Publisher: Jonathan Cape A spare and stunning new novel from one of England's ightest literary Talents. At thirty. Aislinn Kelly is an Occasional novelist with near-morbid. a attunement to The Motives of THOSE around her. Isolated. restless and stuck. she decamps to America - a default recourse - this time to an attic room in Indianapolis. to attempt once again the definitive act of self-salvage. There are sharp memories to contend with as the summer heats up. and not least regarding her family history. now revealed as so botched and pitiful it seems it might yet cancel her out. She's been bullied and belittled by her long-vanished father through a stream of emails. and now her mother is helplessly glorying in a second rancid marriage. There are also friendships lost or ailing: with bibulous playwright Karl. sly poet Erwin. depress...
Review:
'Gwendoline Riley...shows herself more than up to the job of writing the wasted hinterlands of the human heart.' (Anne Enright, The Guardian)

Riley is careful not to forsake craft in favour of voice, preferring instead to make Aislinn’s monologue perform all kinds of invisible work, in terms of scene-setting and plot development. The novel is digressive without being idle, slender without being slight... Riley writes with a kind of defeated ecstasy.(Leo Robson, The Sunday Times)

'a scrupulous performance'
Kate Webb, The Times Literary Supplement

'Riley’s work is both intricate and expansive. Her prose is a continual joy to read, and the detail immensely satisfying: she can squeeze more resonance out of a misplaced apostrophe than others can from baroque, technicolour trauma. Her literary style is so wholeheartedly and ambitiously a creation of her own devising that I fully expect the next interesting, stiletto-sharp debut novel by a woman under 30 to be described as Riley-ish, Riley-esque or Gwendolinear. (Stuart Kelly, Scotland On Sunday)

'Icily impressive.' (Stephanie Cross, The Daily Mail)

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  • PublisherJonathan Cape
  • Publication date2012
  • ISBN 10 0224094238
  • ISBN 13 9780224094238
  • BindingHardcover
  • Number of pages240
  • Rating

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9780099565192: Opposed Positions

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