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An Enormous Yes

An Enormous Yes

by WendyPerriam (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2013

    $5.83
Synopsis

Three generations of women, all with very different ideas as to what constitutes the good life. For Hanna, 95, it's always been based on duty, piety, and service to others, but for her granddaughter, Amy, it means wealth success and status. Amy's mother, Maria, is more ambivalent; attracted by both Hanna's high ideals and by the new hedonistic lifestyle she encounters when, after the death of her mother, she moves from Hanna's shabby Northumberland cottage to Amy's stylish London home. After 39 years of celibacy, her second self - a wild sensualist-in-waiting - is awakened by the passionate artist, Felix, who also encourages her long-dormant artistic talents. But should she say 'an enormous yes' to a new life of sexual and artistic self-fulfilment, or follow her mother's example and devote herself to Amy, now pregnant with her first child? An Enormous Yes poses fundamental questions about what constitutes living well, and the choices we are forced to make between wants and needs, ideals and rights; exploring the conflicting claims of entitlement versus duty and responsibility. It pits our image-based, celebrity-obsessed culture against more enduring values, and, in chronicling a passionate relationship between two people in their sixties, challenges society's myth that sex is only for the young. Perriam's powerful and life-affirming new novel combines some of today's most controversial issues with all the exuberance and sexual daring that have made her name.

$5.83

Quantity

1 in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 224
 Publisher: Robert Hale Ltd
Published: 28 Jun 2013
ISBN 10: 0709093853
ISBN 13: 9780709093855

Media Reviews
Wendy Perriam is one of the most interesting unsung novelists of her generation. Intelligent and accessible, she is fighting for the same bit of turf as Joanna Trollope; but she is probably the more accomplished and varied writer of the two. She writes beautifully about relationships and hilariously about sex. Her work can be recommended without reservation for its honesty, its acuteness and its wide-ranging humanity. Sunday Telegraph Each book is a magnificently orchestrated orgy in which her potent blend of sex, religion and humour takes the reader on a spiritual odyssey from the solid rocks of safety to the wilder shores of fantasy. Time Out Perriam is a writer of authority and skill, with a wicked ear for conversational quirks. Sunday Times Like Muriel Spark and Edna O'Brien, Perriam sticks her neck out to confront the subjects of sex and religion. She must be admired for her energy and her nerve. The Scotsman Perriam has the knack of being explicit about sex without being crude or embarrassing... She teases us to the end with twists and turns in the plot, but just as accomplished is the novel's moral debate. Literary Review One of the finest and funniest writers to emerge in England since Kingsley Amis. She is gifted with devastating powers of observation and can call up characters who are both compact and complex. Herald Tribune Perriam is rare among contemporary writers in the breadth of her canvas and the boldness of her colours: a sort of literary blend of Benjamin Haydon and Stanley Spencer. Books and Bookmen She has a considerable command of her craft and a shrewd sense of those aspects of contemporary life which are worth recording. Times Literary Supplement Wendy Perriam is a real find. For she has that magical combination of a brisk, lively style and a literate intelligence. Her characters are vibrantly realistic; her understanding of human hopes, selfishness and absurdity sympathetic, but sharp and funny; the dialogue twists absolutely right. Perriam is a very welcome discovery. Sunday Express Wendy Perriam is sometimes very funny, sometimes very sexual, sometimes very painful, and always difficult to pin down. Standard Nobody does deep feelings better. Sunday Times Perriam's shrewd, sharp prose style is complemented by a marvellous talent for satirical observation. The Scotsman Perriam is both clever and funny, as well as being a skilled artist with something to say about life. This is an author who has learned how to face the world and tame the horrors of life: we should be grateful for her optimism - it is infectious. The Tablet Perriam is a skilled and sympathetic observer of contemporary life, so there is a lot of truth about contemporary morals, manners and fantasies. Sunday Telegraph It is impossible to categorize this prolific novelist, whose work is a bizarre mixture of intellectual gravitas and sex scenes more steamy than any you'd find in a bonkbuster. Perriam has a pacy Polaroid pen. Daily Mail. Wendy Perriam puts the soul back into sex. Irish Independent Perriam makes waves with her novels because each of them is an unusually honest projection of her personality and each of them is sustained by a fine command of her craft. Glasgow Herald Perriam must be a strong contender for Britain's most underrated novelist. Daily Telegraph Wendy Perriam was born to write. She looks at the world with a different eye from the rest of us. Her work refreshes and exhilarates. She gets to the heart of the matter, and there, lurking beneath the seriously mundane, we discover the spiritual underpinnings of the universe. I am her greatest fan. Fay Weldon Perriam's strength is emotional accuracy. She draws convincing characters and poignant situations, and the reader can't help but be emotionally involved. The Spectator Wendy Perriam is that rare case of an author who has clearly seen something of life, and is willing to speak boldly, in her own voice. The London Magazine Wendy Perriam is one of our most consistent, and most consistently under-rated, authors. She never features in the best-seller lists or comes into contention for literary prizes. But she rarely fails to deliver the goods. Sunday Telegraph Perriam addresses serious issues, but she writes with such verve and a delight in language that the touch is light even when the themes are weighty. New Books magazine Wendy Perriam is bursting with ideas about sex, death, grief, celibacy, the problems of old age, of guilt, of mother-daughter relationships - The problems of women of all ages are described in a flexible lucid style, with humour and exuberance. Irish Times Perriam is a very human writer - she understands how people make mistakes, for she has both wit and compassion, two qualities that are often mutually exclusive. The Tablet Literary, funny, moving - in a word, wonderful. Daily Mail
Author Bio
Wendy Perriam has been writing since the age of five, completing her first 'novel' at eleven. Expelled from boarding school for heresy, she escaped to Oxford, where she read History and also trod the boards. She now divides her time between teaching and writing. Her sixteen novels and seven short-story collections boldly mix sex, religion and humour, and have been acclaimed for their psychological insight and their power to disturb, divert and shock. Perriam feels that her many conflicting life experiences - strict convent-school discipline and swinging-sixties' wildness, marriage and divorce, infertility and motherhood - have shaped her as a writer. 'Writing allows for shadow-selves. I'm both the staid conformist matron and the slag; the well-organized author toiling at her desk and the madwoman shrieking in a straitjacket.'