Book Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to bone up for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary figure?

Turn to "Dictionary of Literary Biography" for the finest literature reference material. Brought to you by the Gale Group--the world's leading source of reference information--this e-doc contains a biographical essay written by a noted literary expert as well as extensive primary and secondary bibliographies.Download Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to bone up for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary figure?

Turn to "Dictionary of Literary Biography" for the finest literature reference material. Brought to you by the Gale Group--the world's leading source of reference information--this e-doc contains a biographical essay written by a noted literary expert as well as extensive primary and secondary bibliographies. ... Read more

Amazon.com
This intimate, intensely seen novel was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize. Shena Mackay's six previous novels have won her critical admiration and a popular audience in England, but her work has not received due recognition in the United States yet. The Orchard on Fire is a concise, domestic novel set in the village of Stonebridge, where the parents of April Harlency have come in 1953 to run the local tea shop. April's private reveries and her entanglement with the grim family life of her best friend, Ruby Richards, fill up a vivid and dramatic year in the wonderfully distinctive life of Stonebridge.Book Description
When April Harlency and her parents move from Streatham to The Copper Kettle Tearoom in Kent April's whole life changes. Through her eyes we witness her rite of passage from childhood to adolescence. With her best friend, the wonderfully exciting but dangerous Ruby, they discover an idyllic secret world in the orchard. However, their lives are permeated with a sense of menace which is mainly centred on Mr Greenidge who befriends April and involves her in a sinister and uncomfortable relationship that will eventually lead to trouble for all her family. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

charming but plotless
Memories of a year of childhood, told in the first person but presented as a novel. The incidents forming the bulk of the book are framed by a narrative in which the adult author goes back to the village where she was raised. These incidents are often dramatic or amusing but they are separate stories and do not cohere to form a conventional plot. The book would have been better as a straight non-fiction memoir. The writing is often graceful but sometimes tends to the seed catalog school of fancy prose e.g. " a sky as pale blue as the scabious that grows with fragile poppies and the scarlet pimpernel sprawling over the marled furrows."I enjoyed it, but I had recently read Trezza Azzopardi's "The Hiding Place" and after the impact of that masterpiece of remembered childhood this suffered by comparison.

A Glorious, Heady Plunge Into Childhood
In my opinion, this is Shena MacKay's best novel.In Coronation Year, Betty and Percy Harlency, with their small daughter, April, move from London to a small village in Kent called Stonebridge, to take over The Copper Kettle Tearoom.The Copper Kettle is a charming, but not financially prosperous, establishment.

When April meets the tomboyish, fiery, ginger-haired Ruby, their friendship is instantly sealed.The girls are staunch allies who conspire together in every way possible.Their secret signal is the "lone cry of the peewit;" their hideaway is a railway carriage where they are continually up to mischief.When the two girls finally manage to pry open the door of the carriage they stand and gaze "in the smell of trapped time."

It is this smell of trapped time, this nostalgia for the emotions of the past, that The Orchard on Fire conjures so expertly.MacKay is reminiscent of Proust in this extraordinarily evocative novel and we feel intimately connected to April and to her emotional life.MacKay, usually a brilliant writer, excels in The Orchard on Fire and we can hear the buzz of the insects and the bluebottles, smell the overgrown weeds and the lush summer grass and picture the family's new home at The Copper Kettle.

The small English village where April lives is a bit unconventional as are April's parents; the duo are unlikely political radicals and MacKay manages to introduce a Bohemian element into the story in the gentle, pretentious artist characters of Bobs Rix and Dittany Codrington, who is "like the Willow Fairy in Fairies of the Trees by Cicely Mary Barker."

One of the best sections of this wonderfully-written book comes when The Copper Kettle is chosen to host a weekend party for Bobs and Dittany and their artist friends.For a time, Stonebridge is awash in fairy lights and the pink glow of nostalgia.

Although some may dismiss The Orchard on Fire as overly-sentimental, it is nothing but.Child abuse plays a part is this masterfully-written story as does sexual perversion, bringing to mind scenes of Pip in Great Expectations.We become deeply immersed in April's world, and in her fears and expectations, most particularly her horror at losing a cherished Christmas present.

Although this novel tells us more of April then just her childhood, it is childhood that is most strongly evoked in all of its trouble and all of its glory.The adult April is but a shadow of the child April and we, who grew up with her, know why.

The Orchard on Fire is Shena MacKay at her finest and one of the most wonderful and atmospheric books I have ever read.It is a glorious, heady plunge into the world of childhood that will never be forgotten.

remembrance of things past
If you are a female child born in the late 50's in South London, as I was, and if you also spent your young life in Kent, as I did, you will understand the mastery of this novel. I have never read anything whichrecalls this time and place in such a way that can only be described as'Proustian'. Thenovel, 'The Orchard On Fire'has a particular 'smell' and'truth' I have only experienced before in the novel, 'Wise Children' byAngela Carter. Fantastic and wonderful. Bless you Shena Mackay and thankyou.

Less is more
The power of this story is all in the telling; behind the ingenuousnarrator, twelve-year-old April, the implied author stands in thebeautifully realized shadows, and so orders the narrative that the readeris offered the ultimate compliment of creating his/her own perception ofultimate meaning. The characterizations, like the threads of experience,are rendered all the more powerfully convincing through economy; selectivedetail allows the reader's imagination full rein. I found myself deeplymoved by the plight of all children under threat, whatever form the abusemay take, and comforted by the compassion of the creator. She writes likeother well-loved novelists of mine, such as Penelope Lively and AnitaBrookner;like them she engages me in enlightening reflection.

Childhood revisited
The characters in this story are what makes it so successful, especially April and Ruby two eight year old girls who are a perfect match for each other. The innocence of April and Ruby's daring wildness remind me of what a childhood experience is all about. I had wished that April revealed Mr. Greenidge's advances but was relieved that he wasn't cruel, unlike Ruby's parents however, who should have been reported long before they were. The reminiscences in the last chapter were a powerful reminder of how tied we are to our pasts. It is true that we "...purchase pieces of our lives..." at rummage sales but how else do we hang on to the past and share the dreams of others? ... Read more

Book Description
Word count: 2221. ... Read more

Book Description
A collection of writing that reflects the subject of friendship in all it's guises. What brings more joy and more consolation than friendship? It is the glue that binds fragmented societies, and the lubricant that keeps their rusty machinery chugging along. Our friends define us, and the very word ' Friend ' derives from the Old English word for ' love 'In this eclectic selection, Shena Mackay concentrates on the modern. Her choice ranges from the 1st world war, through thefamiliar and less well known, to preivously unpublished stories very much of our time. Friends are celebrated with humour and wit, but darker aspects, loss, betrayal and regret, are also touched on in this portrayal of the innumerable permutations offriendship. ... Read more

Book Description
A young woman left with only her pride stands up to the hypocrisy of a cruel town in the latest novel from this award-winning author. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Many adjectives have been applied to the work of Shena Mackay, but sentimental is not one of them. The Artist's Widow is a fine example of Mackay's brand of acerbic storytelling--who else, one wonders, would have the chutzpah to end a novel with the death of Diana, neatly skewering popular sentiment about "the People's Princess" with her title character's dry remark that "we're in danger of genuine grief being whipped up into something ugly." Indeed, the line between genuine feeling and its ugly counterfeit is the underlying theme of Mackay's fifth novel, and she sets the tone right from the start as she plunges us into a retrospective of the work of recently deceased artist John Crane, attended by his friends and family. Chief among these are Lyris, his widow, also a painter, and Nathan, his great-nephew, an artist-poseur long on posturing and woefully short on talent. Lyris, who nurses no illusions about her relation, remembers him "as a little boy at a family party loading his paper plate with cocktail sausages, chocolate fingers, gherkins, cake and crisps until it collapsed, and with white powder on his nose at her husband's funeral." Nevertheless, she harbors a fondness for him. Nathan, on the other hand, regards her as an "old bat," but is willing all the same to suck up to her, his eye always cocked on the main chance. Eventually he manages to convince Lyris that there's a real bond of affection between them--an illusion that nearly costs her everything.

But Lyris is not the only character suffering from delusions; there is Nathan's ex-girlfriend, Jacki, and Lyris's middle-aged and frustrated friend Clovis. There is Clovis's ex-wife, Isobel, and his current girlfriend, Candy. There is Nathan's crowd of unsuccessful artist-wannabe friends and his grasping parents, Buster and Sonia--all suffering in various degrees a disconnect between what is real and what they'd desperately like to believe. Mackay masterfully mixes and mismatches her creations and leaves them with at least as many loose strings dangling as ones that have been tied up. Readers looking for an uncomplicated happy ending, beware: the worldview expressed in this gleefully black domestic comedy has far more in common with Evelyn Waugh's than Jan Karon's. --Alix WilberBook Description
"Every artist leaves behind a shadowy retrospective exhibition of the pictures that were never painted," begins this tale of the good, the bad, and the untalented. But what do the artists present at the private viewing of the late John Crane's last paintings sense of this "shadowy retrospective"? Among those attending are Lyris, Crane's widow and a painter herself; her grandnephew Nathan, a boorish conceptual artist; Clovis, a middle-aged bookseller; and Zoe, a beautiful young filmmaker. None of them realize it, but the evening will forever alter their lives. The Artist's Widow is a novel about the nature of friendship, betrayal, courage, and cowardice. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Purple Sentimental Ink
The Artist's Widow is a disappointing book.Written by an excellent author, I really expected more.In fact, quite a bit more.

In The Artist's Widow, images of Bereavement abound.After a long and devoted marriage, a painter's widow is attending a retrospective showing of her late husband's work.As she looks at his paintings, she can't help but reflect, as though her husband were also present in the room:"It was the sort of party John and Lyris Crane hated."

Later, amid the snobbery and insincerity of an inexpensive dinner give by the gallery owner, ostensibly in Lyris' honor, but filled with people she doesn't even know, she comes to have other, more intensely personal feelings for John:"Lyris felt a pang of envy for John, among the flowers and berries of the crematorium gardens.But the trees would be gathering darkness now, the reeds and bullrushes whispering, a chilly dew rising to meet the rain.Time to come indoors."

At home, Lyris takes off her tight blue dress shoes and dons a pair of John's worn slippers."Kind boats," she thinks.These two words tell us more about the marriage of John and Lyris Crane and evoke an empathy that many writers cannot evoke with an entire book filled with words.

The Artist's Widow is a finely-drawn portrait of Lyris, herself a painter, and the emotions she faces as she rallies against sorrow, solitude, frailty, confusion and fear that surrounds an eighty-year-old woman and the seemingly uncaring, forbidding world of outsiders.

Shena MacKay, a Scottish novelist, is a wonderful writer, a true master of words, and, although the portrait of Lyris is a wonderfully-drawn one, the book, itself, is still fatally-flawed.

In her best books, primarily, The Orchard on Fire and An Advent Calendar, MacKay characterizes villains as Britains who are politically, economically or culturally privileged.They are atrocious characters and people we love to hate.Her heroes, on the other hand, tend to be misused, sparky, angelic; the downtrodden who manage, somehow, to take wing and fly.Although this may seem contrived in an author of lesser talent, MacKay gets away with it because she really knows how to be elusive, how to use sudden shifts and reversals in time and how to write magical passages filled with intensity, energy and sometimes, comedy.

In The Artist's Widow, MacKay misses the mark.Surprisingly so for someone so talented.Although Lyris is a wonderful character, her sadness is reduced to a mere grimace and the other characters are, sadly, no more than mere cliches.The "bad" ones are exaggerated out of proportion while the "good" ones are just too pat and pallid, as are the comeuppances for the former and the rewards for the latter.

One of the "bad" characters is Nathan, Lyris' great-nephew by marriage.Nathan is a young artist on the make; a man who sees that none of his friends gets ahead and whose friends see that he doesn't, either.Although his repulsiveness is patently obvious to us, Nathan, himself, feels it to be nothing less than cutting-edge.

MacKay, usually so very good, experiences a lapse with The Artist's Widow.In describing Nathan she says, "His eyelids, with a bristle of pale lashes, were tender and his eyes dull green and hard."Later, Nathan becomes "a pond with green scum on its surface."

Nathan, unfortunately, is not the only victim of language-overkill.One unfortunate woman is nicknamed "The Wounded Squid" because "she was so clinging and so easily hurt into squirting her purple sentimental ink over everything."

Even Lyris' dead husband is not spared.MacKay writes, "The last canvases burned with the brilliant chemical derangement of autumn when the slow fuses smoldering up the stalks of senescent leaves burst into mineral fire."

Despite his awfulness, and Nathan is awful, he really is no more than a cardboard cutout.And then there is Zoe, who seems to harbor some redemptive value.She however, is nothing more than a false start that soon peters out.

On the side of the "good" guys, there is Jackie, a victim of racism who is far too far-fetched to be believable, Candy and Clovis, the gentle but confused bookseller.

The dispensations of justice in this book come all too quickly and patently and the characters seem to be playing a role into which they are forced.Shena MacKay, to her credit, is not a tidy author, but in The Artist's Widow, she is downright confusing.Read Shena MacKay, by all means, but read An Advent Calendar or The Orchard on Fire rather than The Artist's Widow.The first two are really first-rate books, books that are worthy of this wonderfully-talented author. ... Read more

Book Description
Shena Mackay is frequently and copiously praised - Elle deemed her "the best writer in the world today." It's no wonder, considering the gallery of strange and memorable characters who populate the stories in The World's Smallest Unicorn. These include a would-be biographer who visits a home for retired clowns; an expatriot who returns from Hong Kong to find his family and London dramatically changed; an elderly woman, once a fearless journalist, paralyzed at the thought of meeting the daughter of her dearest friend; and a budding writer who becomes an amanuensis for a famous woman novelist - with disastrous results. In these feisty new tales, Mackay combines the mysterious and the everyday to scintillating effect. Praise for Shena Mackay: "A powerfully invasive writer of remarkable dash, sudden efflorescence, and earthly depth. She is funny, satirical, and yet forgiving." - Vogue ... Read more