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Grandmother Wolf

Grandmother Wolf

by PatriciaTyrrell (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2005

    $3.30
Synopsis

In a velvet-lined, treasure-filled room, in a house torn open by shelling that balances precariously on 'the line' dividing East and West Beirut, Madeleine lives out her days like a Lebanese Miss Havisham. Refusing to move out during all but the worst of the fighting, she bickers constantly with her long-suffering Arab maid, and enjoys tormenting her already-angry daughter and fussing over her militia-fighting son. On the other side of the world, Madeleine's orphaned grandson Rick is summoned by his guardians and ordered to leave Seattle to stay with the grandmother he has never met. The troubled teenager has recently gone off the rails, and his guardians hope that the unbending old lady will instil some discipline into their wayward charge. Madeleine gleefully awaits Rick's coming, anticipating the amusement she can derive from pulling the young tearaway back into line. But when he arrives, wide-eyed and idealistic, Madeleine is surprised by the feelings he provokes in her. Rick in turn is unprepared for the violence, chaos and colour of 1980s Beirut. But as grandmother and grandson begin to negotiate a tentative relationship, Rick finds both horror and love in the damaged city, and Madeleine is forced to shake off her long-preserved isolation as they find themselves sucked into the whirlwind of the civil war.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 288
 Edition: 1st EDITION
 Publisher: W&N
Published: 30 Jun 2005
ISBN 10: 0297848968
ISBN 13: 9780297848967
Book Overview: Patricia was shortlisted for the Encore Award with her self-published edition of THE RECKONING'. The fact that her writing career began when she was seventy-three, and that her story is one of the triumph of talent and determination makes her hugely promotable. Although the novel is largely set in Beirut - and the city is brilliantly, captivatingly described - like THE RECKONING, it's really the story of a family: about loss, reconciliation and loyalty. 'Quite simply, this is an amazing book. All of the big issues are here: love and family, war and chaos, loyalty and blood. Set in Beirut during the final days of the civil war, Tyrrell manages to paint a picture of the everyday chaos of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. One of the most interesting and original books I have read in years...' Janine di Giovanni

Media Reviews
'Grandmother Wolf contains much of the stuff of the fast-paced action thriller, but Tyrrell shapes her combustible material into a quiet study of what brutality is and does, and how it may be survived...[a] finely wrought, slow-burning book.' -- Sheena Joughin TLS 'GRANDMOTHER WOLF also boasts robust characters, and examines blood ties, loyalty and love...Twists in the plot keep the reader surprised, and Tyrrell's strength lies in characters who embrace the moral expediencies of war.' -- Marianne Brace INDEPENDENT (11.8.05) 'Tyrrell works her symbolism densely, and it is one of the virtues of her writing that this is so unobtrusive. Reading her book is like entering Madeleine's house, down its dark alleyway and through the ruined cinema, where images echo and what is revealed is all the more haunting for being viewed obliquely.' -- Anna Vaux SPECTATOR 'The violence and chaos of the 1980s Beirut forms the colourful backdrop to Patricia Tyrrell's absorbing second novel...Tyrrell creates a work of remarkable intensity, in which the conflicts between Eastern and Western cultures are mirrored in the tension between youth and old age.' YORKSHIRE EVENING POST (20.8.05) 'Within this beautifully-written book with a well drawn and interesting plot it is revealed how every aspect of the war impacts on each member of the family...Tyrrell superbly illustrates how a young, rich and spoiled brat from the United States becomes an ordinary Beirut citizen...an extraordinarily good novel.' -- Tricia Summer TRIBUNE (26.8.05)
Author Bio
Half-English and half-American, Patricia Tyrrell lives in Cornwall, after living for some years in the US. Her self-published novel THE PROMISED LAND was the runner-up for the Sagittarius Award in 2001, and her 300-copy self-published edition of THE RECKONING was shortlisted for the Encore Award in 2003.