The Country Girls: Three Novels and an Epilogue Spiral-Bound | 2017-11-14

Edna O'Brien Eimear McBride (Introduction by)

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A treasure of world literature back in print, featuring a new introduction by Eimear McBride

The country girls are Caithleen "Kate" Brady and Bridget "Baba" Brennan, and their story begins in the repressive atmosphere of a small village in the west of Ireland in the years following World War II. Kate is a romantic, looking for love; Baba is a survivor. Setting out to conquer the bright lights of Dublin, they are rewarded with comical miscommunications, furtive liaisons, bad faith, bad luck, bad sex, and compromise; marrying for the wrong reasons, betraying for the wrong reasons, fighting in their separate ways against the overwhelming wave of expectations forced upon "girls" of every era.

The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue charts unflinchingly the pattern of women's lives, from the high spirits of youth to the chill of middle age, from hope to despair, in remarkable prose swinging from blunt and brutal to whimsical and lyrical. It is a saga both painful and hilarious, and remains one of the major accomplishments of Edna O'Brien's extraordinary career.

Publisher: Macmillan
Original Binding: Trade Paperback
Pages: 560 pages
ISBN-10: 0374537356
Item Weight: 1.1 lbs
Dimensions: 5.6 x 1.4 x 8.3 inches
Customer Reviews: 3 out of 5 stars 1,001 to 10,000 ratings
Praise for The Fanatic Heart

"There's no writer alive who sounds quite like Edna O'Brien. Her prose has a unique mixture of darkness and light . . . Like Flannery O'Connor, O'Brien can't help laughing even as she stares into the heart of darkness." --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World

Edna O'Brien (1930-2024) was the author of more than twenty-five works of fiction, including The Country Girls, The Little Red Chairs, and The Light of Evening. She received numerous awards, including the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and the Ulysses Medal. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she lived in London for many years.