In a decaying Tuscan villa, Rennie, a self-absorbed academic, completes his dissertation, and Louise contemplates the ruin of their marriage, until Louise's life ripens with new and unconventional possibilities
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Images of death, decay and putrefaction, of violence, sexual perversion and thwarted escape permeate this stunning second novel, a psychological thriller by the Australian author of Lillian's Story. In a cloud of suppressed hostility, the narrator, Louise, and her professor husband Rennie come from London to Tuscany, where they are to spend the summer in a villa loaned to them by Rennie's colleague Daniel. The house turns out to be in a dangerous state of disrepair, infested by mice and threatened by the inroads of predatory nature. "The final collapse was only a matter of time," Louise says, but she is also talking about her marriage. When Daniel arrives unexpectedly to join his obnoxious, aloof children Viola and Hugo in his other villa next door, Louise's suspicions about her husband and Daniel's relationship are aroused. An almost palpable air of sexual tension, underscored by menace and mystery, suffuses the taut narrative. Grenville's ability to create surcharged imagery seems limitless: a lobster thrust in boiling water seems "to take hours to die . . . its shriek floating up in the steam"; a woman's face "had the grey papery quality of something incurable"; hundreds of clocks all "tick . . . away together, each one a mass of jittering wheels beneath the bland face"; a kitchen is stocked with "smiling curved" knives . . . "with a nick in each blade like a shark's mouth." The seething tension seems to demand a more explosive resolution than Grenville provides, but the gothic atmosphere she so deftly manipulates makes this a gripping tale.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Rennie Dufrey is proud of his thick orange mustache and his striking wife Louise, who married him for the income and position that he will soon offer as a professor. Vaguely worried that they might not be able to stand being alone with each other, Rennie and Louise set off to spend the summer in the Italian villa that Daniel, a professor friend, has loaned them. The villa proves to be in wretched disrepair, and their only neighbors are Hugo and Viola, Daniel's strange, secretive children. Daniel finally arrives to whisk them off to his home across the valley. Soon after, Louise realizes that she had been living with a stranger: " . . . it had taken me this long to recognize my husband as a man who belonged to men, not to women." The novel's strength lies in Louise's quiet acceptance of this realization, which allows her to discover herself and to act on her discovery. Mary L. Kirk, Univ . of North Carolina at Wilmington Lib.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 20.00
From Australia to U.S.A.
Seller: Books On Dean, Albury, NSW, Australia
8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall Card Covers Very Good Red card covers, "UQP" in yellow at head of front cover but no other title, pp. [i-iv], 1- 170, cover corners and edges lightly rubbed. Seller Inventory # 003328
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Berry Books, Berry, NSW, Australia
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Size: 8"-9" Tall. Previous owner's name in ink. Quantity Available: 1. Category: Australian Fiction; ISBN: 0702219592. ISBN/EAN: 9780702219597. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 14837. Seller Inventory # 14837
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: PulpFiction, Glebe, NSW, Australia
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Some foxing. Seller Inventory # ABE-1642742775936
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Silver Trees Books, Malvern, WORCS, United Kingdom
Hardcover. Condition: As New. First Edition. Mint book in clean fresh pink board covers with maroon titles on the spine. Internally mint; SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR on the title page; faint hint of a tan to page edges. The dust jacket is mint and not price clipped. A lovely copy. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 028932
Quantity: 1 available