Nora Webster - Softcover

Tóibín, Colm

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0670918156 ISBN 13: 9780670918157

Publisher: Viking, 2014

Synopsis

* * * Shortlisted for the 2014 Costa Novel Awards and the 2015 Folio Prize * * *

Nora Webster is the heartbreaking new novel from one of the greatest novelists writing today.

It is the late 1960s in Ireland. Nora Webster is living in a small town, looking after her four children, trying to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. She is fiercely intelligent, at times difficult and impatient, at times kind, but she is trapped by her circumstances, and waiting for any chance which will lift her beyond them.

Slowly, through the gift of music and the power of friendship, she finds a glimmer of hope and a way of starting again. As the dynamic of the family changes, she seems both fiercely self-possessed but also a figure of great moral ambiguity, making her one of the most memorable heroines in contemporary fiction.

The portrait that is painted in the years that follow is harrowing, piercingly insightful, always tender and deeply true. Colm Tóibín's Nora is a character as resonant as Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary and Nora Webster is a novel that illuminates our own lives in a way that is rare in literature. Its humanity and compassion forge an unforgettable reading experience.

'A profoundly gifted world writer' Sebastian Barry

Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of eight novels, including The Blackwater Lightship, The Master and The Testament of Mary, all three of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize with The Master also winning the IMPAC Award, Brooklyn which won the Costa Novel Award and Nora Webster which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award in 2014 and the Folio Prize 2015. He has also published two collections of stories and many works of non-fiction. He lives in Dublin.

About this title

Review:

A fine companion piece to his acclaimed novel, Brooklyn . . . Mixing irony and nostalgia in its portrayal of a provincial Irish town. Subtle and enthralling (Sunday Times, Books of the Year)

Tóibín's measured prose and close attention to emotional nuance is shown at its best here (Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year)

This is his best yet. The ache of a widow's grief is rendered with such an unadorned intensity that you might not think the book could be entertaining too, but it is (Spectator, Books of the Year)

A clear-sighted yet sympathetic portrait of a woman destabilised by grief (Financial Times, Books of the Year)

So rich, so observant, so moving (Observer, Books of the Year)

Tender, delicately oblique in its narration, and exquisitely well-written (The Times)

A luminous, elliptical novel in which everyday life manages, in moments, to approach the mystical . . . There is much about Nora Webster that we never know. And her very mystery is what makes her regeneration, when it comes, feel universal (Jennifer Egan New York Times)

Beautiful and heartbreaking. It's so richly detailed and laced with such dialogue that you feel like you are living in Nora's world (Independent)

Arresting. As this novel movingly proposes, there are no ordinary women and no ordinary lives (Irish Indendent)

The story is so expertly crafted that it achieves a luminous intensity, which lingers long in the memory (Mail on Sunday)

From the Author:

Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of seven other novels including Blackwater Lightship, The Master and The Testament of Mary, all three of which were nominated for the Booker Prize, with The Master also winning the IMPAC Award, and Brooklyn, which won the Costa Novel Award. He has also published two collections of stories and many works of non-fiction. He lives in Dublin.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0670918156
• ISBN 13: 9780670918157
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320