"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
This twinning tale suits Enright's style right down to the ground: Her mandate is to bump us into awareness, and if it takes double heroines, so be it. Her language does the rest of the work. On the very first page, for instance, she freshens the simple act of holding a baby into a joke: "And they handed her on from arm to arm, with the dip that people make when they give away a baby--letting her body go and guiding her head, as though it might not be attached. Nothing worse than being left holding the baby, they seemed to say, except being left with the baby's head." In fact, Enright is transfixed by the weirdness of the body, as when Maria visits a dairy farm: "She is too old to dip her fingers in the milk and let the calves suck. Though when she does, a feeling she has never had before goes straight up her arm and into her right nipple. Hello, farming." Enright writes fiction meant to surprise. But her message is surprisingly traditional: biology matters. --Claire Dederer
At the beginning of What Are You Like? Berts, a new father, simultaneously struggles to love his baby daughter while mourning the wife who died giving her life. Raised in the shadow of his quiet grief, Maria finds herself at twenty in New York City, awash in nameless longing and falling in love with the wrong sort of man. Going through her lover's things, she finds a photograph of herself aged twelve, in clothes she's never worn, a place she's never been. It will send her home to Ireland, to the slow unraveling of a secret that may prove more devastating than Berts's long sadness, but more pregnant with possibility. Moving between Dublin, New York, and London, What Are You Like? is the story of a woman haunted by her missing self. Troubling and hilarious, it posits an unforgettable chaos theory of family, of daughters sent out into a world that is altered forever by their leaving, and of our helplessness nonetheless against our fierce connections to our homes and the people who give us life.
"This book is so sad that you want to laugh out loud. It deals with areas of experience and patterns of living that no one else has noticed. As Dylan Thomas said about At Swim-Two-Birds, 'If you sister is a big loud boozy girl, then give her this book.'"--Colm Toibin
"A spry surrealist who challenges the world with extraordinary, lancing sentences...Enright captures something subterranean with a strange flick of her marvelous insight."--James Wood, The Guardian (London)
"What is Anne Enright like? Flann O'Brien, yes, Tristram Shandy, a little, or Jonathan Swift meeting Kurt Vonnegut.... She whispers from inside her characters' minds, describing confusion, and the half-realized state of things which pass before their eyes.... Writing that wants to be read out loud, encounters that hover on the edge of revelations, and an excitement that fiction was once supposed to deliver. What is a really good novel like? This, for a start."--Aisling Foster, The Times (London)
"An eloquent writer...dazzlingly funny.... For Enright the recognizable dimensions of time, speech, and thought...are fluid and interchangeable, while metaphors often become the things they stand for.... [A] very powerful story."--Penelope Fitzgerald, The London Review of Books
Anne Enright lives and works in Dublin. In the United Kingdom, she has also published one collection of stories, The Portable Virgin, and a previous novel, The Wig My Father Wore. She is also a broadcast journalist, presenting pieces for BBC Radio 4.
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR006630615
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Fair. A readable copy of the book which may include some defects such as highlighting and notes. Cover and pages may be creased and show discolouration. Seller Inventory # GOR009530121
Book Description Condition: Very Good. 1706622639. 1/30/2024 1:50:39 PM. Seller Inventory # U9780224060639
Book Description Condition: Poor. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has soft covers. In poor condition, suitable as a reading copy. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,350grams, ISBN:9780224060639. Seller Inventory # 9167478
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: Very Good. Paperback Original. First Edition trade paperback, 259 pages; gently read, clean and unmarked. See also our other Enright titles. Seller Inventory # 021291
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: Very Good +. Paperback Original. First Edition trade paperback, 259 pages; very gently read, tiny rubber stamp on half title page, otherwise very clean and unmarked. See also our other Enright titles. Seller Inventory # 021251
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Paperback. 1st edition. 21.5x13.5cm. 259 pages. Spine is flat. Clean & tight. No inscriptions. Flat pages. Dispatched ROYAL MAIL FIRST CLASS with TRACKING next working day or sooner securely boxed in cardboard. ref zb. Seller Inventory # 043461
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket as Issued. First Paperback Edition. Trade paperback. A Paperback original. Slight wear on cover edges. Peeling on cover turning points. Lightly tanned pages. Clean pages. Strong binding. No inscriptions. 4th printing. Seller Inventory # 009856
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Signed by Anne Enright on the title page; this is the uncorrected proof of the Jonathan Cape edition published in March 2000. In fine condition, unread and in very collectible condition. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 002675