Edmund Narraway has returned to his childhood home for the first time in years to attend his mother's funeral. The visit rekindles feelings of affection and nostalgia, but also triggers a resurgence of the tensions that caused him to leave in the first place. As Edmund once again becomes entangled in his family's web of corrosive secrets, his homecoming tips a precariously balanced dynamic into sudden chaos, in this compelling story of reunion and coming apart.
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Edmund Narraway has returned to his childhood home for the first time in years to attend his mother's funeral. The visit rekindles feelings of affection and nostalgia, but also triggers a resurgence of the tensions that caused him to leave in the first place. As Edmund once again becomes entangled in his family's web of corrosive secrets, his homecoming tips a precariously balanced dynamic into sudden chaos, in this compelling story of reunion and coming apart.
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Seller's Description:
Very good in very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. Audience: General/trade. 1964 Viking hardcover 1st US edition and printing. Slight tilt to spine, soil and slight edgewear/chipping on dj, two markdown prices on front flap, light sunning on cover, a bit of soil on edge, else text clean, binding tight.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Chatto and Windus, 1964, a tight, square hardcover in a vg/unclipped dj, no owner's mark, light wear, edge wear, pages tanning, edgewear, small chips, spots on dj.
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Seller's Description:
Near Fine in Very Good jacket. First edition. Small spot on front board else very near fine in about very good dustwrapper designed by Edward Bawden with shallow chipping on the spine ends, a bit of toning at the spine, and light offsetting on the front flap from a clipping.
If there is a reason that "The Italian Girl" does not rank among Murdoch's finest work, it may be that the first person narrator Edmund is hopelessly self-absorbed. Coming home for the funeral of his dictatorial mother, he has no more pressing objective than to get out of his family home and catch the very next train to the half-life he has endured. But families have demands, and Edmund is soon blundering his way through several crises of inheritance, infidelity, and unexpected pregnancy. As always, Murdoch draws vivid characters and creates a powerful sense of locale. Most evocative is Edmund's trek behind his troubled niece to an enchanted spot by a stream, where she upsets his nonchalance with a request that is anything but enchanted. There is no rule in first person literature that we have to like the storyteller, and Murdoch does well in making the light of some other characters -- especailly the surreal servant referred to in the title -- shine clearly through the eyes of a man who, initially at least, could care less.