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The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Actress
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 29 reviews on
Nominee:Women's Prize for Fiction -Fiction (2020)
Katherine O'Dell is an Irish theater legend. Every moment of her life is a performance, with her daughter, Norah, standing in the wings. With age, alcohol, and dimming stardom, however, Katherine's grip on reality grows fitful. Fueled by a proud and long-simmering rage, she commits a bizarre crime.
As Norah's role gradually changes to Katherine's protector, caregiver, and finally legacy-keeper, she revisits her mother's life of fiercely kept secrets; and Norah confronts in turn the secrets of her own sexual and emotional coming-of-age. With virtuosic storytelling, Actress weaves together two generations of women with difficult sexual histories, touching a raw and timely nerve.
Book Details
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
- Publish Date: Feb 2nd, 2021
- Pages: 288
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 8.20in - 5.40in - 0.80in - 0.55lb
- EAN: 9780393541458
- Categories: • Literary• Historical - General• Women
About the Author
Enright, Anne: - Anne Enright is the author of eight novels, most recently The Wren, the Wren. She has been awarded the Man Booker Prize and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and was named the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction. In 2022, Enright was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Book Awards. She lives and works in Dublin.
Critics’ reviews
Praise for this book
Intoxicating.... Even while laughing at Enright's wicked mockery, I was moved by the tenderness of her evocation of difficult love.--Mary Gordon "New York Times"
Gorgeously written fiction.... Enright's unflinching portrait... is scrupulously developed and painfully moving.--Wendy Smith "Boston Globe"
There is something that seems effortless about Ms. Enright's writing--an illusion, of course, but one brilliantly sustained.--Sam Sacks "Wall Street Journal"
Captivating.--Sara Resnick "The New Yorker"
[A] skillfully crafted, emotionally charged novel from an expert practitioner.... Enright has given us another first-rate performance.--Malcolm Forbes "National"
A perfect jewel of a book, a dark emerald set in the Irish laureate's fictional tiara, alongside her Man Booker Prize winner The Gathering (2007) and The Green Road (2015). Its brilliance is complex and multifaceted, but completely lucid.... Actress is a deeply humane, often darkly funny novel about the exercise of power over sexually attractive women. The grim subject matter is illuminated by Enright's acute sensitivity to language.... Enright proves, once again, her genius.--Ruth Scurr "Spectator"
Out in force. Anne Enright, the unofficial rock star of literary fiction, cements her stardom with Actress.--Niamh Donnelly "Irish Times"
In Katherine O'Dell, her fictional fallen star of stage and screen... Enright has created a heroine as irresistible to the reader as to her audiences.... She has become a byword for contemporary Irish literary fiction at its finest.--Lisa Allardice "Guardian"
Actress absolutely enthralled me.... [An] immersive, masterful novel.--Anya Meyerowitz "Red magazine"
May I recommend Actress by Anne Enright. Her writing is always pitch perfect, but this is truly exquisite. If there is such a thing as the perfect novel, this is it.--Nigella Lawson