Illyria [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Hand (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 13, 2010

Madeleine and Rogan are first cousins, best friends, twinned souls, each other?s first love. Even within their large, disorderly family?all descendants of a famous actress?their intensity and passion for theater sets them apart. It makes them a little dangerous. When they are cast in their school?s production of Twelfth Night, they are forced to face their separate talents and futures, and their future together. This masterful short novel, winner of the World Fantasy Award, is magic on paper.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Growing up in 1970s Yonkers, Maddy and Rogan were called the “kissing cousins” of the Tierney clan. In a secret attic space, they find a toy theater, complete with lighting and stage effects that appear like magic, but no actors or audience. As their discovery stirs within them the desire to create, Aunt Kate, mysterious and unnaturally beautiful, brings their abilities to a boil. Determined to restore the family's long-abandoned theatrical heritage, Kate pushes Maddy and Rogan to nurture their gifts in the school's production of Twelfth Night. However, Rogan's wild nature is ever at odds with his haunting, melodious singing voice, and Maddy's glamour, no doubt the gift of their great-grandmother, an ingénue of the stage, shines dimly in the brilliance of Rogan's fey charms. Winner of the World Fantasy Award, Hand's slim novella is sublime and daring; she makes no mystery about the nature of the 15-year-old cousins' relationship. It's as sweet, sexual, obsessive, and devastating as any other first love. YA readers are entrusted with a narrative of burgeoning and squandered talent, unapologetic incest, familial decline on par with that of Faulkner's Compson family, and a hard-won ending that's, at best, tenuously hopeful. The subtlety and raw ache of the prose, and the realistic portrayal of artistic lives, triumphantly heralds Hand's arrival into youth fiction. Grades 10-12. --Courtney Jones

Review

"This intense, sensual and bittersweet love story unfolds in hauntingly lyrical prose and should appeal to mature teens." --Kirkus

"Beautifully written, rich in theatrical detail and intensely realized characters." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"The subtlety and raw ache of the prose, and the realistic portrayal of artistic lives, triumphantly heralds Hand's arrival into youth fiction." --Booklist, starred review

"Romantic readers will be swept through the short novel... and will be left blinking in surprise...beyond the final page." --Horn Book

"[R]eaders will be as compelled by the strangely connected cousins as they may be disconcerted." --The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Viking Juvenile; 1 edition (May 13, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670012122
• ISBN-13: 978-0670012121
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #238,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A couple of years after seeing Patti Smith perform, Elizabeth Hand flunked out of college and became involved in the nascent punk scenes in DC and NYC. From 1979 to 1986 she worked at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air & Space Museum; she was eventually readmitted to university to study cultural anthropology, and received her B.A. She is the author of many novels, including Winterlong, Waking the Moon (Tiptree and Mythopoeic Award-Winner), Glimmering, and Mortal Love, and three collections of stories, including the recent Saffron and Brimstone. Her fiction has received the Nebula, World Fantasy, Mythopeoic, Tiptree, and International Horror Guild Awards, and her novels have been chose as New York Times and Washington Post Notable Books. She has also been awarded a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship. A regular contributor to the Washington Post Book World and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Hand lives with her family on the Maine Coast.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I missed the point (and I feel bad about it)., March 18, 2011

By 

Rachel McElhany - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Illyria (Hardcover)

Maddy and Rogan are first cousins; actually their fathers are identical twins so genetically they're half-siblings. They share the same birthday, are each the youngest of six children and grew up together on the same street. They are also passionately and hopelessly in love with each other. They steal time together hidden away in Rogan's attic where they find an enchanted toy theater.

Maddy and Rogan's great-grandmother was a famous stage actress. When Maddy and Rogan are both cast in their school's production of Twelfth Night, they realize the extent of their own talents for acting and must decide what that means for their futures, both together and separately.

Okay, I'll just be honest here. After reading the other reviews of this book, I'm feeling pretty dumb. It's gotten rave reviews all over the place and won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella. I enjoyed it but I feel like I must have missed something. I wanted more. I wanted to know why the theater was in the attic and why it was enchanted and who put it there. I kept waiting for it to have more of a role in the story and it never did. The reviewer who wrote: "Though more practical-minded readers may have a hard time grasping the point of this short novel, Hand's writing is beautiful and her imagery vivid." sums it up nicely. I am too practical (and maybe not smart enough) for this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Semi-Lyrical Novella, November 25, 2010

By 

Mark Saint Sinclair (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Illyria (Hardcover)

Though the supposedly YA orientation of this novella doesn't precisely play to Hand's hallucinogenic style, there's enough mystery, romance, and glamour on hand to make this a fun read. Though length and structure-wise it feels more like a novella than a short novel, the length is well-suited to the parlor romance feel of the material.

And though this is pitched as YA, and Hand crops her style accordingly, in the end the overall vibe is more a middle-aged memory piece than YA romancer. That's not a criticism, just an observation.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Haunting and gorgeous, June 16, 2010

By 

The Compulsive Reader (Big Rapids, MI, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Illyria (Hardcover)

Madeleine and Rogan Tierney are first cousins and descendants of the great stage actress Madeleine Armin Tierney. They live with their many relatives at Arden Terrace, a gated community with large, rambling houses in Yonkers, and as the youngest cousins they are the closest--so close that they share a connection no one else could ever comprehend, and ultimately fall in love. Encouraged by their glamorous Aunt Kate to pursue their legacy in theater, the two participate in their school's production of Twelfth Night, which causes all sorts of feelings and emotions to swell, and forces Madeleine and Rogan to face the uncertainty of their future together.

Illyria's setting is rich and lush, from the depictions of how Madeleine and Rogan spent their childhoods to the details in the sprawling, decaying homes that their families inhabit. Hand's writing is indeed intense, and the relationship she builds between the cousins is full of tension and passion, especially when they share private moments in the attic of Rogan's house, watching the tiny, magical toy theater they found. It is evident through their roles in Twelfth Night that both Madeleine and Rogan possess talent for the stage, but while one of them wastes it, the other embraces it, cleaving the two and showing them each very different futures. Though more practical-minded readers may have a hard time grasping the point of this short novel, Hand's writing is beautiful and her imagery vivid. Like any great tragedy, Illyria is haunting and gorgeous.