From Publishers Weekly
Scottish novelist Kennedy (So I Am Glad; Original Bliss) sets her seventh book on bleakly romantic Foal Island on the coast of Wales, home to the Fellowship, possibly the world's most unusual and most hazardous writers' colony. The novel opens with an arresting scene: Nathan Staples, a commercially successful but artistically failed novelist, is in the process of hanging himself. Nathan survives, and decides instead to bring Mary, now 19, the daughter he hasn't seen since she was four, to the island on a writing fellowship. Mary Lamb makes the seventh member of the Fellowship, and she has no idea that Nathan is her father, or why she was chosen for her stipend or, for much of her residency on Foal Island, the nature of the Fellowship and their odd frequency of incidents "in the risk-taking area." Kennedy is richly, boldly imaginative, both in the scenes she conceives and in the language and images she uses to convey them, alternating exposition with internal monologue and scraps of manuscript and winding from one arresting figure of speech to the next. Foal Island is much closer to Prospero's Isle than it is to the London literary scene which Kennedy excoriates with lacerating wit ("This is what hell will be like, you know?" says one editor about to leave a London publisher's party. "In heaven there are many mansions and in hell there are many houses all of them publishing"). Kennedy's complex, prickly and uncompromising quest for an understanding of the life of the spirit draws her into dark waters, but she keeps a tenacious hold on warmer truths, too the human heat-seeking instinct is at the generous heart of her tale. (July 26)Forecast: This is Kennedy's biggest, most ambitious work yet, and one of the most important literary novels of the summer. Expect prominent reviews (likely a few cover pieces) and healthy sales.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
Nathan Staples is a successful middle-aged novelist who feels that he has squandered his talent writing thrillers. He also regrets having abandoned his wife and daughter many years ago. When Staples discovers that his daughter is now an aspiring writer herself, he secretly arranges for her to win a fellowship to study with him on Foal Island, a writer's colony off the coast of Wales. Mary Lamb has no idea that Staples is her father, and Staples spends the next seven years trying to work up the nerve to tell her. Here, Scottish author Kennedy (So I Am Glad) reworks the story line of A Star Is Born, substituting literary fame for Hollywood celebrity. Mary's career quickly takes off, while Staples succumbs to writer's block and depression. Kennedy offers some devastating insider criticism of the current publishing scene, but her main objective is to examine the self-imposed obstacles that stand in the way of true intimacy. This hugely ambitious novel has an edgy, post-punk surface that only partly conceals the old-fashioned family values at its core. Recommended for most fiction collections. Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
