Entering Ephesus [Paperback]

Daphne Athas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1991

This novel, about three school-aged sisters, originally published by Viking Press 20 years ago, was hailed by the critics, made Time magazines Ten Best Fiction List in 1971, and won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction in 1972. A British edition by Chatto and Windus in 1972 was equally praised, as the following review excerpt attests: As formulas for happiness go, theres a lot to be said for shared adversity; and if this can be enriched with a touch of group paranoia, so much the happier for one and all. Hence, when in 1939 the Bishop family have to leave their loved and lovely house on the Connecticut coast and plunge geographically and socially down, there is glory in this fall and survival, a vindicationof their sense of inborn aristocracy, savored more lusciously as things become worse and worse. Here they are penniless and stuck in this arid town of Ephesus, lodged in a crumbling shack on the edge of Niggertown: Fatheran immigrant Micawbercan only play-act hopelessly as the business of business, and the local kids are astounded by these girls eccentricities, their outlandish homemade clothes, the daft poetry of their arrogance. But it is the unquenchable sense of specialness of mere magical Bishopry, which holds them together against all common sense, so that the girls can take on Ephesus in all its horror and screw it stupid. Times Literary Supplement

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Forced by the Depression to move to a squalid, all-black Southern town called Ephesus, the father, mother and three daughters of the upper-class Bishop family gradually abandon their aristocratic ways. ``This is a big book in every sense of the word, glorious, fascinating and holding up perfectly in the 20 years since its first publication,'' said PW.

Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 442 pages
• Publisher: Permanent Pr Pub Co (May 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0933256795
• ISBN-13: 978-0933256798
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,694,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Entering Ephesus, April 3, 2000

By 

LSeyler (Chicago, Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Entering Ephesus (Hardcover)

I read this coming-of-age story more than twenty years ago, when I was coming of age. It has left vivid images of life on what we would now call the nerdly fringes of adolescent society in a mid-Southern university town. I remember a boy walking along railroad tracks, thinking about his worn corduroy pants and deciding that he was above caring what the unenlightened might think of him. I remember an out-of-touch mother who found creative outlet in designing eccentric dresses for her daughters to wear on their first day of school in a new town. Being too close in development to the subjects at the time, the book's meaning washed over me, but its images have come to me from time-to-time as memories of a strange encounter. It is a powerful portrayal of adolescence.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic, November 3, 2007

By 

Suzanne Freeman (Charlottesville, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Entering Ephesus (Paperback)

I read this book when it first was published in 1971 and my old copy is now falling apart because I thumb through it so often to help me with my own writing. It's a vivid, compelling, hilarious and heartbreaking portrait of a family uprooted after losing their house in the depression -- and it's still relevant more than 25 years after being published. That's what makes a classic....