A Recipe for Bees - Softcover

Anderson-Dargatz, Gail

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860496989 ISBN 13: 9781860496981

Publisher: Bantam Books, 2001

Synopsis

Augusta Olsen is a woman with passions and desires who has inherited three things from her mother: a wayward heart, a talent for beekeeping and the very dubious gift of second sight. These are legacies just too big for a young wife who finds life on a remote farm with shy, awkward Karl and his detestable father almost unbearable. But farming husbands and wives are married to their land as much as to each other. From that kind of necessity, a different sort of love is made - and remade...'The characterisation is excellent throughout and the novel abounds in fine vignettes of domestic life. Its evocation of humdrum lives illuminated by heroism is truly heart-warming' - SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

About this title

Review:

Augusta Olsen has seven cats, a son-in-law in the hospital "for tests," and a husband who never says what he is thinking. A Recipe for Bees looks back over her life story, from a childhood on a farm in rural Canada through various waves of premonition and loss. As a young girl she is infatuated with the handsome and mysterious Joe, but all she has left of him is a pendant: a bee frozen in amber. When her mother dies, she marries Karl, who loves her so much that his face reddens when he looks at her. He makes her feel safe and irritable. Only late in life when she rediscovers her mother's beekeeping equipment does Augusta find a true opening into the past, as she spends hours out among the swarms, observing how "a handful of bees felt for all the world like a handful of warm black currants."

A Recipe for Bees is most original and compelling in such passages, which have inherent metaphoric power. It is not for readers seeking the overtly provocative--Gail Anderson-Dargatz stays within a passionate but circumscribed set of images and emotions. A prizewinner for her previous novel The Cure for Death by Lightning, the author will appeal to readers who understand the power of everyday tragedies. --Emily White

From the Back Cover:

"A Recipe for Bees is a wonder worth cherishing: a wise, beautiful, and deeply felt novel that reminds us all it's never too late to fall in love."
?Chris Bohjalian

"Anderson-Dargatz's second novel shows how much she shares the rich vision of fellow Canadians Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. . . . Featuring wonderful, salty descriptions of the prairie and its people, this is a real discovery."        ?The Mail on Sunday (U.K.)

"Anderson-Dargatz has something that no amount of craft can give a writer: She is hopelessly in love with and attentive to her subject, the physical world, and all of its gifts."        
?The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

"This is quite an achievement for an author at the outset of her career. The characterizations are excellent throughout and the novel abounds in fine vignettes of domestic life. Its evocation of humdrum lives illuminated by heroism is truly heartwarming."        
?The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.)

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1860496989
• ISBN 13: 9781860496981
• Binding: Paperback