THE HAPPIEST DAYS - Softcover

Connolly

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857027159 ISBN 13: 9781857027150

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2000

Synopsis

A brilliant collection of short stories from an outstanding new voice in contemporary fiction.

Happy days have their souring. In this remarkable debut, Cressida Connolly explores the lives of children and young people who, in the wake of events that alter everything, find themselves split like stone. A conversation on a trip to the zoo – words which can’t be clutched back – heralds the end of a family; a boy watches his father fold Aunt Rose in his arms and loses his vocation; in an alarming account of sibling rivalry, a young girl becomes jealous of the attention afforded her dying sister.

Each of these finely crafted stories is its own forceful and separate world where familiar emotions – love, loss, jealousy, loneliness – are dissembled and show anew.

About this title

Review

'Connolly has a sure touch with a very English kind of irony; with things left unsaid . . . Loss of innocence, lack of communication and the inarticulacies of love are examined with empathy and without sentimentality.' -- Sunday Telegraph

'Cressida Connolly has an exact, quizzical eye, a generous imagination, and the power to draw her readers into the strangeness of being a stolen child, a lion tamer, a woman waiting to be tattooed.' -- Helen Dunmore

'Excellent.' -- Will Self

'Her ability to create atmosphere seems to me to be in the Elizabeth Bowen class . . . What Larkin describes as "the strength and pain of being young" is exactly captured in these penetrating stories. Read them.' -- Georgina Hammick

'Poignant reminders of adolescent traumas, these stories are unmissable' -- Marie Claire

'Read it, and arrange for someone to scrape you off the floor' -- Time Out

From the Back Cover

Happy days have their souring. In this remarkable collection of stories, Cressida Connolly explores the lives of children and young people who, in the wake of events that alter everything, find themselves split like stone. A conversation on a trip to the zoo heralds the end of the family; a boy watches his father enfold Aunt Rose in his arms and loses his vocation; in an alarming account of sibling rivalry, a young girl becomes jealous of the attention afforded her dying sister.

Each of these finely crafted stories is its own forceful and separate world where familiar emotions – love, loss, jealousy, loneliness – are dissected and shown anew. With this collection, Cressida Connolly makes an exciting and stunningly original debut.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1857027159
• ISBN 13: 9781857027150
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192