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3.0 

Conrad & Eleanor

By Jane Rogers
Conrad & Eleanor by Jane Rogers digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

From the multi-award-winning and critically acclaimed author of The Testament of Jessie Lamb comes this riveting novel about the devastating secrets revealed in the midst of a disintegrating marriage.

The story of a marriage, and of two lives in science.

When Conrad fails to return from a conference, Eleanor wonders if it is because of the affair she is having? Or perhaps it is because his research into transgenic monkey hearts is stalling; perhaps he is sick of having the less successful career of the two of them?  She is a leading expert in stem cell research. Their grown-up children suspect Eleanor of murdering their father; El secretly fears that what has driven Con away is his discovery of their daughter Cara’s parentage.

While his family in Manchester, England, scrabble for clues and reasons, Conrad—alone, confused, and on the run from a crazed animal rights activist—loses himself in the cold foggy streets of Bologna. He revisits the stages of his long marriage to El, from the happiness of the year of Cara’s birth to the grief and anger he now feels. Both partners are forced to re-examine their relationship, and, in the process, to move closer to an understanding of what it is that matters most to each of them.

Conrad and Eleanor is a radical, remarkably nuanced look at marriage.

2 Reviews

3.0
“I've never read a book by Rogers before, and I'm looking forward to reading many more. This is a story of the slow decline of a marriage, but not in the way that you might think. When Conrad doesn't return home after an academic conference, his wife, El, at first suspects she had the date wrong.. and considering she's barely noticed his presence over the previous few months, it doesn't really occur to her that anything else could be wrong. When days go by and he's officially missing, she begins to think back to the beginning of their marriage and all the way through to try to remember what went wrong, and how they could have gotten to this place. Meanwhile, Conrad has not fallen into the hands of kidnappers, nor has he run away from another woman... he's disappeared for completely different reasons, and as he spends more time away from El and their four children, he too begins to think about their marriage and the various factors that led them here. This is a beautifully written book about what happens in long-term relationships when things become too comfortable, or, in the case of these two, occasionally downright hostile. There were some things I didn't like about it (and to avoid spoilers I won't mention exactly what they are because in order to talk about them I'd have to give away key things) but suffice to say, for the most part I thought this book was riveting, and the writing was gorgeous, and despite a few plot-driven hiccups, I'd highly recommend it. Looking forward to reading more of her books.”

About Jane Rogers

JANE ROGERS has written eight novels, including Her Living Image (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), Mr. Wroe’s Virgins (a Guardian Fiction Prize runner-up), Promised Lands (winner of the Writers’ Guild Award for Best Fiction Book), Island (longlisted for the Orange Prize) and The Voyage Home. She has written drama for radio and TV, including an award-winning adaptation of Mr. Wroe’s Virgins for BBC2. She has taught writing at the University of Adelaide, at Paris Sorbonne IV and on a radio-writing project in eastern Uganda. She is professor of writing at Sheffield Hallam University and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Jane lives on the edge of the moors in Lancashire, England. Visit her online at janerogers.org.

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