Growing up in the west of Ireland in the 1940s Tess is a shy introverted child. But beneath her quiet exterior lies a heart of fire. A fire that will later drive her to make her home among the hurly burly of 1960s New York.
Over four decades and a life lived with quiet intensity on Academy Street in upper Manhattan, Tess encounters ferocious love and calamitous loss. But what endures is her bravery and fortitude, and her striking insights even as she is 'floating close to hazard
Joyous and heart-breaking, restrained but sweeping, this is a profoundly moving story that charts one woman's quest for belonging amid the dazzle and tumult of America's greatest city. Academy Street establishes Mary Costello as one of Ireland's most exciting literary voices.
Review
"Packed with emotional intensity" (Sunday Times)
"A writer of huge ability . . . Brings to mind John Williams's resurrected masterpiece, Stoner" (Guardian)
"To recount a life story in a novel is a difficult task. To do so with brevity and unsentimental honesty takes greatness. Academy Street is a powerful and emotional novel from one of literature's finest new voices" (JOHN BOYNE)
"An exceptional first novel" (The Times)
"With extraordinary devotion, Mary Costello brings to life a woman who would otherwise have faded into oblivion" (J.M. COETZEE)
"Mary Costello's writing has the kind of urgency that the great problems demand - call them themes; they are the kind of problems that make a writer" (ANNE ENRIGHT Guardian)
"Academy Street is understated, graceful and, ultimately, devastating. Even as my heart was breaking I couldn't put the book down" (DONAL RYAN, author of The Spinning Heart)
Academy Street by Mary Costello -March 2015
Moderators: Clare Bookclub Mod, Clare Books Mod
-
- Posts: 95
- Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2007 12:28 pm