The juniper tree
Comyns, Barbara, 1907-19922018
Book
Total copies: 1
In their idyllic garden, Gertrude and Bernard forge a perfect triangle of friendship with Bella, the scarred mother of an illegitimate child. Then Gertrude conceives the child which has long eluded her, and the spell breaks into foreboding, menace and madness. A modern reimagining of a classic fairy tale by one of most bewitching, idiosyncratic British writers of the twentieth century.Bella Winter has hit a low. Homeless and jobless, she isthe mother of a toddler by a man whose name she didn'tquite catch, and her once pretty face is disfigured by thescar she acquired in a car accident. Friendless and withoutfamily, she's recently disentangled herself from a selfishand indifferent boyfriend and a cruel and indifferentmother. But she shares a quality common to BarbaraComyns's other heroines: a bracingly unsentimental abilityto carry on. Before too long, Bella has found not only ajob but a vocation; not only a place to live but a home anda makeshift family. As Comyns's novel progresses, thestory echoes and inverts the Brothers Grimm's macabretale The Juniper Tree. Will Bella's hard-won restoration tolife and love come at the cost of the happiness of others?
Main title:
The juniper tree / Barbara Comyns ; introduction by Sadie Stein.
Author:
Comyns, Barbara, 1907-1992, authorStein, Sadie, writer of supplementary textual content
Work:
Imprint:
New York : New York Review Books, [2018]
Collation:
ix, 177 pages ; 21 cm.
Series title:
Notes:
Also published electronically.
ISBN:
9781681371313 (softcover : alk. paper)9781681371320 (epub)
Dewey class:
823.914
LC class:
PR6053.O452
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
549425