Country Girl, Edna OBrien
Country Girl, Edna OBrien
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Country Girl
A Memoir

Author: Edna O'Brien

Narrator: Edna O'Brien

Unabridged: 13 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/30/2013

Synopsis

"Country Girl is Edna O'Brien's exquisite account of her dashing, barrier-busting, up-and-down life."-National Public Radio

When Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation.

Starting with O'Brien's birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her story moves through convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, the wild parties of the '60s in London, and encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans. There is love and unrequited love, and the glamour of trips to America as a celebrated writer and the guest of Jackie Onassis and Hillary Clinton.

Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have imprinted upon and enhanced one lifetime.

About Edna O'Brien

Edna O’Brien (1930–2024) was the author of more than twenty-five works of fiction, including The Country Girls, The Little Red Chairs, and The Light of Evening. She received numerous awards, including the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and the Ulysses Medal. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she lived in London for many years.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Laura on August 21, 2013

Edna O Brian has led a fascinating life and was quite the woman. Well 'is' quite the woman as she is still with us. What did I like about this book? The charm, the beautiful prose, the stories of her childhood, the early years of her marriage and the obvious pride and love she has for her children.......more

Goodreads review by Hugh on March 02, 2015

Wonderful lyricism as expected from Edna o'brien but a bit self-indulgent.......more

Goodreads review by pizca on May 11, 2018

Después de leer las memorias de O'Brien saco como conclusión que Edna ama y a su vez es Literatura. Ella estaba en cierto modo destinada a ser unas de las grandes escritoras Irlandesas y de la literatura en general a pesar de los muchos obstáculos que se fue encontrando: Unos padres que tenían reser......more

Goodreads review by Deacon Tom on August 15, 2021

Confusing “Country Girl “ is a very unbalanced book. The first half is very interesting and a great portrait of a woman struggling with her marriage. Suddenly, the theme of the book changes to her “name dropping “ and greed. Very confusing! I can’t record this book.......more

Quotes

Praise for Country Girl

"Ms. O'Brien has long and correctly been recognized as among the greatest Irish writers of the 20th century. She's had an outsize life to match her outsize talent."--Dwight Garner, New York Times

"O'Brien's account of her life is completely irresistible."--Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe

"O'Brien's religion has been literature; to it she has remained devout, with a fervor that is contagious...She is no saint. She is an icon."--Stacy Schiff, New York Times Book Review

"In prose as lyrical and exacting as any in O'Brien's fiction, Country Girl evokes both the solitariness and the adventure of a life devoted to writing."--Megan O'Grady, Vogue

"Edna O'Brien has made of her memories something of both precision and depth, a book that, letting us see her as she was, jumps with an all-consuming curiosity from one lucidly narrated event to another."--Philip Roth

"In Country Girl there is great honesty and struggle, and joy and sorrow leaping together--pure life!"--Alice Munro

"You must suffer to become yourself, and it doesn't get easier. I took heart from Country Girl, both as the self-portrait of a great prose stylist, and an exemplary female survivor."--Judith Thurman, "Best Books of 2012," The New Yorker

"Flashes of prodigious beauty and power."--Hilary Mantel

"The doyenne of contemporary Irish letters did not enjoy a straight-line rise to international fame and critical regard. . .Now, of course, O'Brien's fiction (brilliant short stories as well as novels) is seen for what it always was, richly illuminating and, yes, candid depictions of women's needs and desires, rendered with no sentimentality or salaciousness. . . .Her book is a beautifully expressed testament to a writer's tenacity."-Brad Hooper, Booklist (starred review)



"Demure reflections on her celebrated literary life well lived comprise this lovely memoir....O'Brien always returns to the enduring heart of her writing."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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