Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Narrow Land: WINNER of the Walter Scott Historical Prize for Fiction 2020
    Unavailable
    The Narrow Land: WINNER of the Walter Scott Historical Prize for Fiction 2020
    Unavailable
    The Narrow Land: WINNER of the Walter Scott Historical Prize for Fiction 2020
    Ebook477 pages7 hours

    The Narrow Land: WINNER of the Walter Scott Historical Prize for Fiction 2020

    By Christine Dwyer Hickey

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT HISTORICAL PRIZE FOR FICTION, 2020

    WINNER OF THE DALKEY LITERARY AWARD FOR NOVEL OF THE YEAR, 2020

    SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS, 2019

    An Irish Independent and Irish Times Book of the Year, 2019

    From the author of Tatty,     the Dublin: One City One Book 2020 choice
    ________________________

    'It is a long time since I have read such a fine novel or one that I have enjoyed quite so much.' Irish Times

    1950: late summer season on Cape Cod. Michael, a ten-year-old boy, is spending the summer with Richie and his glamorous but troubled mother. Left to their own devices, the boys meet a couple living nearby - the artists Jo and Edward Hopper - and an unlikely friendship is forged.

    She, volatile, passionate and often irrational, suffers bouts of obsessive sexual jealousy. He, withdrawn and unwell, depressed by his inability to work, becomes besotted by Richie's frail and beautiful Aunt Katherine who has not long to live - an infatuation he shares with young Michael.

    A novel of loneliness and regret, the legacy of World War II and the ever-changing concept of the American Dream.

    'A brilliant portrait... With a beguiling grace and a deceptive simplicity, Christine Dwyer Hickey reminds us that the past is never far away - rather, it constantly surrounds us, suspends us, haunts us.' Colum McCann

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtlantic Books
    Release dateMar 7, 2019
    ISBN9781786496737
    Unavailable
    The Narrow Land: WINNER of the Walter Scott Historical Prize for Fiction 2020
    Author

    Christine Dwyer Hickey

    Christine Dwyer Hickey is an award winning novelist and short story writer. Her novel The Cold Eye of Heavenwon the Irish Novel of the Year of the Year 2012, was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards 2011 and nominated for the IMPAC 2013 award. Last Train from Liguria was shortlisted for the Prix L'Européen de Littérature andTatty was chosen as one of the 50 Irish Books of the Decade as well as being nominated for The Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards novel of the year 2004. Her first novel The Dancer was shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year. She has won several short story awards and her first collection The House on Parkgate Street and other Dublin stories was published in 2013. Her first play, Snow Angels premiered at the Project Theatre Dublin in 2014 and the text of same is published in March 2015 (New Island Books). The Lives of Women is her seventh novel. She is a member of Aosdana.

    Read more from Christine Dwyer Hickey

    Related to The Narrow Land

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      How High We Go In The Dark

      Dec 29, 2021

      ▸ RELEASED 18 JANUARY 304 pages | Hardback/ebook ▸ Author Sequoia Nagamatsu ▸ Publisher Bloomsbury There are surprisingly few SF stories about death. Sure, many books and films kill off characters. But only a handful – like Tarkovsky’s Solaris, or Te

      1 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Mahmoud, Davidson, and More

      Oct 26, 2021

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from Doma Mahmoud, Craig Davidson, and more—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Mahmoud, Davidson, and More appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      For Snow Queens Who Have Considered Suicide Because Paul Newman in the First Twenty Minutes of Paris Blues Is Too Much

      Jun 14, 2022

      But I start with the great Sidney Poitier because his stardom was an established part of the Freedom movement in 1964, and he was to be the chaperone of my inner awakening that dramatic year. Indianapolis, my hometown, had some brave marches and two

      10 min read

    • Article

      Bookshelf

      Aug 3, 2020

      Bookshelf
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: C Pam Zhang

      Dec 11, 2019

      It was the last year of my third decade on this earth, and it seems with every passing year I grow increasingly alien to that earth, or it to me. The post A Year in Reading: C Pam Zhang appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Hafizah Augustus Geter

      Dec 22, 2022

      A Year in Reading: Hafizah Augustus Geter reflects on 2022 through the books she read. The post A Year in Reading: Hafizah Augustus Geter appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      True Love is Feeding Yourself: On Melissa Broder’s ‘Milk Fed’

      Feb 17, 2021

      Milk Fed might make you hungry. Milk Fed might make you horny. Milk Fed might make you believe in god, or in love, or at least make you want to try. The post True Love is Feeding Yourself: On Melissa Broder’s ‘Milk Fed’ appeared first on The Millions

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Deesha Philyaw

      Dec 1, 2022

      Deesha Philyaw reflects on 2022 through the books she read. The post A Year in Reading: Deesha Philyaw appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Sarah Thankam Mathews

      Dec 18, 2020

      By May I was clenching my teeth so hard when I slept that it eventually cracked a filling. The post A Year in Reading: Sarah Thankam Mathews appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Choir of Man: Max Porter’s ‘Lanny’ Wants You to Listen

      Mar 25, 2019

      Porter's second book is an attempt to capture a village, entirely, in language, and it does so by trying to represent the village’s breadth of narrative voices. The post The Choir of Man: Max Porter’s ‘Lanny’ Wants You to Listen appeared first on The

      7 min read

    • Article

      Mary Kuryla

      Mar 9, 2021

      The thing about the shape of a bee, which might be why it is often drawn curved around a flower with the black head bowed over the thorax and the knees tucked in lovely and benign as a comma, lucent wings arching from stripes furred to catch pollen b

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Lighter Side of Dan Chaon

      Apr 11, 2022

      I had a dystopian idea in the beginning, and in the end the dystopia caught up with me. The post The Lighter Side of Dan Chaon appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Jenny Diski's Curious Women

      Jan 25, 2018

      Jenny Diski's Curious Women
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Beautiful Yarn

      Oct 19, 2023

      A Beautiful Yarn
      5 min read

    • Article

      Oceans

      Mar 15, 2019

      I used to be interested in mountains. They moved at a speed I could deal with. They waited for me to catch up. It was like that all my life. Then we moved to California, and after eight years of earthquakes I began to doubt my ability to put things i

      12 min read

    Reviews for The Narrow Land

    4/5

    11 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Publisher’s synopsis: “1950: late summer season on Cape Cod. Michael, a ten-year-old boy, is spending the summer with Richie and his glamorous but troubled mother. Left to their own devices, the boys meet a couple living nearby - the artists Jo and Edward Hopper - and an unlikely friendship is forged. She, volatile, passionate and often irrational, suffers bouts of obsessive sexual jealousy. He, withdrawn and unwell, depressed by his inability to work, becomes besotted by Richie's frail and beautiful Aunt Katherine who has not long to live - an infatuation he shares with young Michael.A novel of loneliness and regret, the legacy of World War II and the ever-changing concept of the American Dream.”Central to this compelling and thought-provoking story are the real-life characters of artists Edward Hopper and his wife Josephine Nivison (although in the story they are referred to by Michael as Mr & Mrs Aitch) and their fictional interactions with a group of neighbours on Cape Cod in 1950. Michael was born in Germany but, orphaned by the end of the War, was brought to America under a President Truman initiative to rescue German orphans and place them with adoptive parents in America. Michael has few memories of his early years, just a very hazy recollection of when he was three and of being hungry, alone and hiding in-between sandbags. Although his adoptive parents, Harry and “Frau Aunt”, are kind to him he has struggled with having to adapt to his new life, to learn English and to “forget” all his German words. In fact, because he worked so hard to do so, he is now able to recall only a couple, but he slightly resents this and is still finding it difficult to feel secure. His anxiety about acceptance and belonging is exacerbated when his adoptive parents, who are now expecting a child and are in the process of moving to a new home, send him to stay with Mrs Kaplan, Richie’s grandmother, and her family for an extended summer holiday. He can’t help but wonder whether they will want him back. Richie is struggling with his own emotional problems; he is still mourning the loss of his father, who was killed in the war, and is resentful not only of Michael’s presence, but of the fact that his mother has now started a new relationship. The two boys find it difficult to form any sort of bond with each other, but each finds their own comfort in the friendships which develop between them and the Hoppers.Essentially the story is told through the eyes of ten-year-old Michael and the Hoppers, although the lesser input from Michael’s adoptive mother adds an important dimension. Although it took me a little time to adjust to the very leisurely writing style (in some ways the action seemed to be taking place in “real time”) I soon found myself immersed in both the internal and the external worlds of each of the characters and their interactions. The selfish, self-centred and often extreme behaviour of the adults made it difficult for me to warm to any of them; there were times when it felt difficult to believe that any of them had any awareness of, or empathy with, the complex range of emotions these two young boys were struggling with. However, as their backstories came to light, it did become slightly easier to feel some compassion for them, a reflection of the skill with which the author gradually revealed what was driving their frequently dysfunctional behaviour.Her psychological insights into the emotional impact of loss and regret, as well as into the effects on people adjusting to a post-Second World War America, a country which, with its involvement in the Korean War, was still in a state of conflict and unrest, were what made this story so compelling for me. It was never a comfortable read because the rawness of the pain of loss, of the insidious damage inflicted by dysfunctional relationships, of unfulfilled dreams, of despair, permeated so many aspects of each of the characters’ lives. However, my despair never became total because there were enough examples of kindness and unselfish acts to enable me to feel that there was some hope for the future. However, I frequently took comfort and pleasure from the author’s wonderfully evocative descriptions of Cape Cod – they brought back lots of happy memories of holidaying there in the 1980s!As I have known, and enjoyed, Edward Hopper’s paintings for many years, an initial attraction to the book for me was the reproduction on the dust-cover of his 1952 painting, “Sea Watchers”. However, little did I know that he and his wife, would play a central part in this fictional story! Since finishing the novel, I have enjoyed doing some research into their lives and have found that this has added a fascinating dimension to my experience of reading this thought-provoking story. With thanks to Atlantic Books and Readers First for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
    • 5/5
      If I was Esther Freud I'd be hauling Christine Dwyer Hickey's backside to court quicker than you could say 'get your own bloody ideas', for The Narrow Land shares more than a hint of resemblance to Freud's Mr. Mac and Me. Famous painter living in cute house in semi-isolation with artistic wife - check. Beguiling friendship with a lonely, damaged young boy - check. Artist struggling with his artistic mojo - check. Coastal setting - check. Wartime setting - well, half a check. Freud's book is set at the beginning of WW1, whereas Dwyer Hickey's is set a few years after WWII, but still. No wonder there was such an air of familiarisation to this book.BUT (and Esther please forgive me - I generally love your writing dearly), I think Dwyer Hickey's novel is better by some margin. Why? Well, for starters there it felt like more of a story was developed in The Narrow Land, which is odd given that on paper Freud had a much more exciting real-life drama to play with in her book. I think Freud excels when she's all about brooding landscapes and emotional tension, and it felt like she begrudgingly squeezed an unwanted plot she didn't know what to do with into the last few pages of the book. Also, Dwyer Hickey is just plain terrific with her characterisation in The Narrow Land, particularly in the way she used different characters to bring out the best and worst sides of Hopper's wife in particular, who was drawn out especially well.Backing up (and I'll set the knife down now Esther), The Narrow Land tells the story of the intertwining relationships between Edward Hopper and his wife Jo and a family renting a house close by on Cape Cod. Socially prickly and jealously protective of her husband, Jo Hopper's relationship with the Kaplan's gets off to to a poor (and unwanted) start, but as an unlikely friendship develops between Jo and a 10 year old German orphaned boy staying with the Kaplan's, the social net of the Kaplan's draws in the Hoppers, throwing a lens upon the Hoppers and their marriage that they eventually can't avoid looking through.Whether this US novel by an Irish author stands up to scrutiny by American readers more directly familiar with Cape Cod I can't say, but it certainly worked well for me and my imagination.This novel was a joy to read, and I'll be looking for more of Christine Dwyer Hickey's books in the future.4.5 stars - Dwyer Hickey's timing is just spot on in this fine novel.