The Country Girls [Paperback]

Edna O'Brien (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 2002

Meet Kate and Baba, two young Irish country girls who have spent their childhood together. As they leave the safety of their convent school in search of life and love in the big city, they struggle to maintain their somewhat tumultuous relationship. Kate, dreamy and romantic, yearns for true love, while Baba just wants to experience the life of a single girl. Although they set out to conquer the world together, as their lives take unexpected turns, Kate and Baba must ultimately learn to find their own way.

"It's a difficult trip, this coming of age . . . O'Brien tells it with love and outrage, compassion and contempt." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

"A treasure . . . powerful . . . intelligent . . . ironic." (The New York Times Book Review)

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Edna O'Brien is the acclaimed author of several short story collections, as well as the novels Time and Tide, House of Splendid Isolation and Down by the River.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Plume (June 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452283434
• ISBN-13: 978-0452283435
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #751,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edna O'Brien, the author of "The Country Girls" Trilogy, "The Light of Evening," and "Byron in Love," is the recipient of the James Joyce Ulysses Medal, and an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in London.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just another story about a poor catholic childhood, March 29, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Country Girls (Misc. Supplies)

Caithleen Brady and Bridget(Baba)Brennan are friends in a poor rural area in Ireland. Written in the first person by Caithleen we see through her eyes a poignant portrayal of friendship, family, first love and disappointment. Edna O'Brien writes in what could only be described as a haunting manner. A gentle coming of age story which follows the girls through the death of Caithleen's mother, the shiftlessness of her father, a scholarship to a convent and their expulsion. The gentleness of Caithleen is a foil to the bright sharpness of Baba, who manages to mislead Caithleen against her better judgement; though she is her friend and anything they do they do together. There are numerous wonderful unique characters: the endearing Hickey, Baba's parents, Joanna the German boarding house proprietess and the enigmatic Mr Gentleman (though that is not his real name - he has a difficult French name so the neighbours changed it to Mr Gentleman). "The Girl With The Green Eyes" continues the adventures of Caithleen and Baba and is as good as "The Country Girls"

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars In youth is pleasure, December 13, 2006

By 

Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Country Girls (Paperback)

Written at a very young age, THE COUNTRY GIRLS established Edna O'Brien very early as an important Irish novelist, and in later books she would continue the adventures of her two heroines here, Caithleen (Kate) and Birdget (Baba), in their search for love and a place in the world. This comic novel is very much in the tradition of number of other much-loved comic Bildungsromans by other twentieth-century women novelists: I CAPTURE THE CASTLE by Dodie Smith, THE PURSUIT OF LOVE by Nancy Mitford, and (perhaps surpisingly) GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES by Dorothy Parker. As in all those other novels, the central two characters are used as contrasts: Kate, the narrator, is bookish and romantic, while the hardedged Baba is out for experience and novelty. The settings of ruined country estate, convent school and Dublin boarding house add to the novelty of o'Brien's work (as does the simple lilting prose), but the greatest treat here is the character of Baba: pragmatic, mocking, alternately cruel and sentimental, she is one of the funniest characters in this subgenre of fiction , and one of the most memorable.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Relentlessly Grim Waste of Time, July 29, 2008

By 

Graceann Macleod "Books Fuel My Life" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Country Girls (Paperback)

The characters are either victims or bullies, and the story is so mercilessly, one-notedly grim that I wanted an anti-depressant after reading it. I actively hoped for the murder of one character, and prayed for the protagonist to grow a spine at some point, but she never did. I kept hearing about Edna O'Brien's humor, and searched for in these pages in vain. I can't share the litany of miseries Caithleen endures without spoiling the story for anyone who might want to read it, but I will settle for saying that I won't be bothering with the rest of the trilogy.