4.0
Friends and Relations
ByPublisher Description
Elizabeth Bowen’s deceptively simple novel opens with the weddings of two quietly conventional sisters: Laurel to Edward, and Janet to Rodney. Ten years later, one intense week is all it takes to unravel the couples’ peaceful lives as a long-concealed secret explodes to the surface. The repercussions ripple through four different families connected by the two marriages, hinging on the comic interventions of such vivid characters as Edward’s mother, the glamorous and scandal-ridden Lady Elfrida; Rodney’s notorious rake of an uncle; and a stridently awkward teenager, Theodora, who is keen to insert herself into the drama. Humor and pain abound in Friends and Relations, as Bowen weaves the barest hints of menace and the subtlest nuances of emotion into this devastating tale of the tangled web of human relationships.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities3 Reviews
4.0
Tabitha Rowland
Created 4 months agoShare
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mae
Created almost 2 years agoShare
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Fiona
Created about 5 years agoShare
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“I am ashamed to say that I've only been able to rate this a 3 star (to start with), NOT because of the quality of the writing (which is truly wonderful) but because something happened half way through me reading this and I found myself utterly lost with all the different characters and their relationships. I think everything with the CV has made me so distracted when I'm reading at the moment that my brain can't cope with normal, social dramas like this book inhabits. Towards the end I didn't have a CLUE what was going on, and because of this I have to rate it lower. However, regarding the story itself (the part I understood) and the wonderful writing, it has to be raised to a 4. Elizabeth Bowen is a fantastic writer - I had no idea she was so funny! I will be tackling her other, more well known books which I will hopefully be able to keep up with!”
About Elizabeth Bowen
ELIZABETH BOWEN was born in Dublin in 1899, the only child of an Irish lawyer and landowner. Her book Bowen's Court (1942) is the history of her family and their house in County Cork. Throughout her life, she divided her time between London and Bowen's Court, which she inherited. She wrote many acclaimed novels and short story collections, was awarded the CBE in 1948, and was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1965. She died in 1973.
Other books by Elizabeth Bowen
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