“Irish-born writer Maggie O’Farrell isn’t one to hold her reader’s hand, but with an urgent tug on your attention she’ll pull you into her complex, intricately imagined novels about women who refuse to conform. Her mesmerizing, enormously satisfying fifth novel, The Hand That First Held Mine, follows The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox and again involves nastily suppressed family secrets that cause untold damage…an uncommonly gripping and moving read.” Washington Post
Description
Lexie Sinclair yearns for more than her parents’ genteel country life. She makes her way to the city, where she meets a magazine editor, Innes, a man unlike any she has ever imagined. He introduces her to the thrilling world of bohemian postwar London, and Lexie learns to become a reporter, to know art and artists, to live fully, unconventionally, and with deep love. And when she finds herself pregnant by a man wholly unsuitable for marriage or fatherhood, she doesn’t hesitate a minute to have the baby on her own.
Later, in present-day London, a young painter named Elina dizzily navigates the first weeks of motherhood after a traumatic birth. Her boyfriend, Ted, shaken by nearly losing her in labor, begins to recover lost memories from his own obscured childhood. As the memory flashes return with ever more disconcerting frequency, we discover a heartbreaking and beautiful revelation that connects these two women and their stories.
A stunning portrait of motherhood and the artist’s life in all their terror and glory, Maggie O’Farrell’s newest novel is a gorgeous inquiry into the ways we make and unmake our lives, and how even our most accidental legacies connect us.
Praise
“Irish-born writer Maggie O’Farrell isn’t one to hold her reader’s hand, but with an urgent tug on your attention she’ll pull you into her complex, intricately imagined novels about women who refuse to conform. Her mesmerizing, enormously satisfying fifth novel, The Hand That First Held Mine, follows The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox and again involves nastily suppressed family secrets that cause untold damage…an uncommonly gripping and moving read.” Washington Post
“O’Farrell brings to mind Sue Miller but with a British and darker flavor; her sure hand for psychological suspense (The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox) continues to be most impressive.” Library Journal
“Maggie O’Farrell has a singular knack for sensing the magnetic fields that push and pull people in love, and in The Hand That First Held Mine, she summons those invisible forces to tell two stories…the result is a remarkably taut and unsentimental whole that embraces the unpredictable, both in love and in life.” Amazon.com Review
Details
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Release Day | Apr 11, 2010 |
| Release Date | April 12, 2010 |
| Release Date Machine | 1271030400 |
| Imprint | Blackstone Publishing |
| Provider | Blackstone Publishing |
| Categories | Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Fiction - All, Fiction - Adult |
Author Bio
Maggie O’Farrell is the author of several novels, including her debut novel, After You’d Gone, which won a Betty Trask Award; The Distance between US, winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; and The Hand That First Held Mine, winner of the Costa Novel Award. She has worked as the deputy literary editor of the London Independent on Sunday.
Narrator Bio
Anne Flosnik, a seasoned audiobook narrator, has over four hundred titles to her credit and several awards and distinctions, including AudioFile Earphones Awards, a USA Today Recommended Listening selection, an AudioFile “Best Narration of the Year” selection in 2009, and the American Library Association’s Special Services to Children Award. She has also been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. She is an award-winning British actress with lead credits on stage, on television, and in commercials and voice-overs.
Overview
Lexie Sinclair yearns for more than her parents’ genteel country life. She makes her way to the city, where she meets a magazine editor, Innes, a man unlike any she has ever imagined. He introduces her to the thrilling world of bohemian postwar London, and Lexie learns to become a reporter, to know art and artists, to live fully, unconventionally, and with deep love. And when she finds herself pregnant by a man wholly unsuitable for marriage or fatherhood, she doesn’t hesitate a minute to have the baby on her own.
Later, in present-day London, a young painter named Elina dizzily navigates the first weeks of motherhood after a traumatic birth. Her boyfriend, Ted, shaken by nearly losing her in labor, begins to recover lost memories from his own obscured childhood. As the memory flashes return with ever more disconcerting frequency, we discover a heartbreaking and beautiful revelation that connects these two women and their stories.
A stunning portrait of motherhood and the artist’s life in all their terror and glory, Maggie O’Farrell’s newest novel is a gorgeous inquiry into the ways we make and unmake our lives, and how even our most accidental legacies connect us.
Reviews
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