Wild Decembers - Softcover

O'Brien, Edna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0753809907 ISBN 13: 9780753809907

Publisher: W&N, 2000

Synopsis

'A gripping love story which will keep the reader guessing to the end and delight Edna O'Brien's many fans' Literary Review

When a young man arrives from Australia to claim his inheritance, he changes a small Irish town for ever.

Joseph Brennan sees Michael Bugler, the returned exile, as a threat. And for Breege, Joseph's younger sister, Bugler is an irresistible stranger to whose charms she must not succumb for fear of betraying her brother.

A love-hate story on many levels, Wild Decembers explores the depth and darkness at the root of all ownership. With a rich and comic cast of characters, this primal story is a complex and daring work, fixed in a time and place, yet imbued with the permanence of myth.

'The power of the writing and the dazzle of the images make the book a resounding success' Dublin Evening News

'Intense and poetic' Independent

'She is one of our bravest and best novelists' Irish Times

'She's an exceptionally good writer. Those elegant, tumbling words, and the conviction that the writer is making a really important point' Sunday Tribune

About this title

Review:

Philip Roth, the Great American Epic Novelist, has decreed that Edna O'Brien is "the most gifted woman now writing fiction in English". This is a major tribute for a writer who, for most of her career, has been sidelined into the rural, female Irish set, and thus has not been taken particularly seriously. It's time, then, that she was. With her latest offering Wild Decembers, O'Brien completes a compelling series of novels that depict contemporary Ireland in terms of its resonant history of folklore and fables and its lush, fertile landscapes.

Joseph Brennan is the stern paterfamilias often to be found in the O'Brien domestic set-up. He is a farmer, who rules his local community from his mountain-top farmstead; his younger sister, Breege, acting as sidekick. When a new-fangled tractor arrives in the midst of this primitive setting, accompanied by its owner, Michael Bugler (now there's a name that speaks volumes for its author's intent), Joseph is threatened and Breege is seduced. "No better than a streetwalker," Joseph berates his sister on discovering her secret passion, before pummelling her with his fists. This is a story of elemental emotions pitted against a mythical backdrop dripping with acutely realised and deeply felt detail. O'Brien must take her place as a novelist who understands the sinister depths that underpin the impulse for possession. --Lilian Pizzichini

Book Description:

A novel of revenge and murder from one of Ireland's best-loved writers.

About this edition

• Publisher: W&N
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0753809907
• ISBN 13: 9780753809907
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304