Year of Wonders - Hardcover

Brooks, Geraldine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067091021X ISBN 13: 9780670910212

Publisher: Viking, 2001

Synopsis

Young Anna Frith, a vicar's maid, is faced with the loss of her family, the disintegration of her local community, and a passionate, illicit love as she and her village confront the horrors of the plague, in a historical novel based on real-life events in seventeenth-century England. A first novel. 75,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders describes the 17th-century plague that is carried from London to a small Derbyshire village by an itinerant tailor. As villagers begin, one by one, to die, the rest face a choice. Do they flee their village in the hope of outrunning the plague or do they stay? The lord of the manor and his family pack and leave. The rector, Michael Mompellion, argues forcefully that the villagers should stay put, isolate themselves from neighbouring towns and villages and prevent the contagion from spreading. His oratory wins the day and the village turns in on itself. Cocooned from the outside world and ravaged by the disease, its inhabitants struggle to retain their humanity in the face of the disaster. The narrator, a young widow called Anna Frith, is one of the few who succeeds. Together with Mompellion and his wife Elinor, she tends the dying and battles to prevent her fellow villagers from descending into drink, violence and superstition. All is complicated by the intense, unacknowledgeable feelings she develops for both the rector and his wife. Year of Wonderssometimes seems anachronistic as historical fiction. Anna and Mompellion can occasionally appear to be modern sensibilities unaccountably transferred to 17th-century Derbyshire. However there is no mistaking the power of Brooks's imagination or the skill with which she constructs her story of ordinary people struggling to cope with extraordinary circumstances.--Nick Rennison

Review:

‘One of the best novels I’ve ever clapped eyes on’ Jenni Murray, Woman’s Hour

‘Geraldine Brooks’s impressive novel goes well beyond chronicling the devastation of a plague-ridden village. It leaves us with the memory of vivid characters struggling in timeless human ways with the hardships confronting them – and the memory, too, of an elegant and engaging story.’ Arthur Golden, author of ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’

‘Geraldine Brooks's ‘Year of Wonders’ is a wonder indeed. The novel gives the reader a remarkable glimpse into a 17th century horror, but does so with both compassion and exuberance. Read it for the inventiveness of the language alone – a genuine treat.’ Anita Shreve, author of ‘The Pilot’s Wife’ and ‘The Last TIme They Met’

'More than a mountain of corpses, more than a sensual evocation of the Sapphic bond between two women, more than a pulse-quickening tale, ‘Year of Wonders’ is a staggering fictional debut.' Guardian

‘’Year of Wonders’ carries absolute conviction as an evocation of place and mood. It has a vivid imaginative truth, and is beautifully written.’ Hilary Mantel

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 067091021X
• ISBN 13: 9780670910212
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320