Items related to Grace Notes
Synopsis
Presents a masterful portrait of Catherine McKenna, an estranged daughter, vexed lover, new mother, and woman composer making her mark in a male-dominated field, and the complex interplay between her life and her art.
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About the Author
Bernard MacLaverty is the author of the novels Lamb and Cal and several short story collections, including Walking the Dog. A native of Northern Ireland, he lives in Glasgow, Scotland.
Reviews
A lyric novel about music and motherhood. Catherine McKenna is an Irish-born pianist and composer whose emotional turbulence sets the tone for a significant part of the story's soft yet visceral verbal music. Catherine's unusually delicate sense of psychic balance is thrown off by two events in particular: the birth of her first child, Anna, and the sudden death of her estranged yet beloved father. Catherine is not married; her mate is a (mostly) lovable drunkard. As an iconoclastic only child who left her family's home in a small town near Belfast for a university education and career in Scotland, the adult Catherine rarely visits or phones her disappointed parents. Her musical career, though, is flourishing, with the BBC broadcasting her work and commissions coming her way at last. Using flashbacks, interior monologues, and dialogue, MacLaverty very gradually creates a complex, dimensional character, until the third-person narrative seems to speak directly to us from Catherine's struggling soul: ``It gave Catherine a strange feeling, this invisible cascade of darkness. She felt suffocated by it quilting downwards--whatever it was. This diminuendo of light brought about by something intangible--odourless--invisible.'' The drawback of MacLaverty's mildly impressionistic approach is the slow, even anticlimactic pace of some scenes, those portraying the domesticity of Catherine's relatively cloistered life, for example, or those, especially, involving her father's death, which open the story. Catherine's character, as it emerges from the fragmentary narrative, tends to overshadow everyone else in a novel guided less by ``story'' than by musical tides and perturbations. It's clear that MacLaverty (Walking the Dog, 1995, etc.) has tried to do something rather difficult: to suggest the interior life of an artist struggling to balance the urgent demands of creating music and the equally pressing demands of life. Very often, he succeeds in this complex portrait of a woman who is, first and foremost, an artist. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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GRACE NOTES CL (MACLAVERTY)
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardback. Condition: Good. The award-winning Grace Notes is a compact and altogether masterful portrait of a woman composer and the complex interplay between her life and her art. With superb artistry and startling intimacy, it brings us into the life of Catherine McKenna estranged daughter, vexed lover, new mother, and musician making her mark in a male-dominated field. It is a book that the Virginia Woolf of A Room of One's Own would instantly understand. MacLaverty summons up a time and a place with an unerring exactness reminiscent of Joyce's Dubliners . . . a magnificent portrait of the sources and ends, wretchedness and rewards, of creativity. Sunday Times London] Page after page something delighted and moved me-marvelous, vivid tours of emotion, intelligence, poetry-every step of the way. Compelling. Dennis McFarland, author of The Music Room I was reminded of the way Joyce Cary so brilliantly portrayed a painter's life in The Horse's Mouth. . . . What a wonderful writer MacLaverty] is Andrea Barrett More ambitious than any of his previous work . . . a remarkable novel. Anna Mundow, Boston Globe Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Prize Winner of the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award. Seller Inventory # 00086934287
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Grace Notes
Published by
W W Norton & Co Inc (edition First Edition), 1997
ISBN 10: 0393045420
ISBN 13: 9780393045420
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: BooksRun, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Fair. First Edition. The item might be beaten up but readable. May contain markings or highlighting, as well as stains, bent corners, or any other major defect, but the text is not obscured in any way. Seller Inventory # 0393045420-7-1
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Grace Notes
Seller: HPB-Diamond, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority! Seller Inventory # S_470416657
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Grace Notes
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Former library book; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0393045420I3N10
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Grace Notes
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0393045420I4N00
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Grace Notes
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0393045420I3N00
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Grace Notes
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: As New. No Jacket. Pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds of any kind. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0393045420I2N00
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Grace Notes
Seller: ThriftBooks-Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Former library book; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0393045420I4N10
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Grace Notes
Seller: ThriftBooks-Reno, Reno, NV, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Former library book; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0393045420I4N10
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Grace Notes
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0393045420I5N00