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Mary Cavanagh (1)

Auteur de The Crowded Bed

Pour les autres auteurs qui s'appellent Mary Cavanagh, voyez la page de désambigüisation.

4+ oeuvres 42 utilisateurs 7 critiques 2 Favoris

A propos de l'auteur

As a `Baby Boomer¿, Mary Cavanagh has lived through the most profound social and moral changes known to social history. A Man Like Any Other is born out of her observations and experiences, her fascination with the strange and secret life that is lived within the mind, and man¿s battle with close afficher plus relationships. She lives in Oxford and is the author of The Crowded Bed (Transita, 2007). afficher moins

Œuvres de Mary Cavanagh

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The Bodleian Murders & other Oxford stories (2010) — Contributeur — 4 exemplaires

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Cleverly written, this book starts with a murder and then takes us back into the past lives of the main characters. Very thought-provoking. An impressive debut novel.
 
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SueinCyprus | 3 autres critiques | Jan 26, 2016 |
What an amazing book. Four people react very differently to the death of Marina Proudfood; we also learn about her own past through some letters she wrote, and build up a good picture of her priest and lover, Father Ewan. Very well written, and although I found the ending a bit frustrating, on further thought I'm not sure how else it could have been done. Four and a half stars, really - my only quibble is with the amount of bad language, which seems a bit excessive in places.
 
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SueinCyprus | 2 autres critiques | Jan 26, 2016 |
I really wanted to like this book, but...
On the positive side, it's very readable and accessible; the plot zips along and the dual timescale is well managed. Characters are clearly defined and distinctive and the beginning and end neatly tie up all of the ends of the plot.
On the negative side
While the characters are clearly defined, they are simplistic and unnuanced. There are the impossibly good and the implausibly evil, mixed up with a stock Jewish family and simple rustics (with accents to match). And Joe, the hero, is a Barbara Trapido character without the wit and bravura.
A lot of the dialogue is lifeless and clunking and impossible to read out with a straight face.
The plot is pretty predictable and the surprises are heavily signposted.

It's really difficult to write domestic middle class drama, because it's been done so often, and so well. This one slips down easily enough, but doesn't leave much of a taste...
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Signalé
otterley | 3 autres critiques | May 30, 2010 |
The term that kept percolating in my mind as I read this novel was "Victorian Modern." There are elements of phrasing and vocabulary that suggest butlers, drawing rooms, and curtsies. Yet, the novel opens in "The Present" on a Thursday in June of 2006 with the act of Dr. Joe Fortune administering a fatal dose of some poison to his father-in-law as he sleeps, and ends on the following Tuesday. The "Present" story, told in first person, is interwoven with "The Past" story, told in third person, that spans several decades and describes the the lives and the love story of Joe Fortune and Anna Moore. The constantly shifting terrain of the narrative sometimes feels like a tennis match as the reader bounces between past and present, between first and third persons, and between Joe and Anna. It's a technique that certainly should keep readers attentive.

Ultimately, I found Joe's story both gritty and realistic. Some of his observations on family and society are quite humorous. However, I found Anna's story less believable. The revelations of her tortured childhood and the details of her earlier marriage to Oliver Frockton toward the end of the book seem inconsistent with her almost saintly behavior as a mature woman. I also found the perfection of Joe's adult son, Daniel, from an earlier violent, unloving marriage unbelievable as well. It was almost as if Anna and Daniel were created more to fulfill the author's wish to have them come through such wrenching circumstances undamaged than to create real people whose personalities and souls should have left them less than angelic.

That said, I did enjoy the book. There are scenes from this story I will not forget. It's not a book for everyone but if you're looking for something off the beaten path then give "The Crowded Bed" a chance.
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jmyers24 | 3 autres critiques | Oct 11, 2009 |

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Statistiques

Œuvres
4
Aussi par
1
Membres
42
Popularité
#357,757
Évaluation
4.1
Critiques
7
ISBN
29
Favoris
2