Carol Birch

Orphans of the Carnival

a novel

Jamrach's menagerie

A body is uncovered in a mudslide just outside the village of Andwiston. In the pub they talk of a murder, but Dan – sometime mechanic, constant drunk – is finding it hard to sift through his jumbled memories.

Cold Boy's Wood

Jamrachův zvěřinec

A ghost novel set in a girls' school in 1960s Manchester. Amidst the resurgence of ghost stories and superstition among the girls, a tragedy is about to occur, one that will send Sally more and more down an uncanny rabbit hole...

Shadow Girls

Jaffy Brown is running through the London backstreets when he comes face to face with the escaped circus animal. His life is transformed by the encounter. Plucked from the jaws of death by Mr Jamrach, the two strike up a friendship. Before he knows it, Jaffy finds himself on board a ship bound for the South Seas.

Jamrach's Menagerie

Turn Again Home

Jaffy Brown wächst in ärmlichen Verhältnissen auf: Londons Docklands im Jahr 1857 stinken nach Moder und Unrat, sind bevölkert von Matrosen und Huren. Eines Tages begegnet Jaffy einem aus einer Menagerie entlaufenen Tiger, einem herrlichen Geschöpf auf geschmeidigen Pfoten. Eine Begegnung, die ihn in eine fremde, verheissungsvolle Welt voll exotischer Schönheit, wilder Tiere und wundersamer Geschöpfe versetzt. Und die in Jaffy Sehnsucht nach der Weite des Meeres weckt: Mit seinem besten Freund Tim heuert er auf einem Walfänger an, der sie auf eine abenteuerliche Reise führt, tief hinein in die Stürme des Indischen Ozeans. Und schliesslich an die Grenzen der Welt und ihres Menschseins.

Roman

Der Atem der Welt

Combining psychological suspense with elements of the ghost story, Shadow Girls is a literary exploration of girlhood by the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Jamrach's Menagerie. Manchester, 1960s. Sally, a cynical fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, is much too clever for her own good. When partnered with her best friend, Pamela - a mouthy girl who no-one else much likes - Sally is unable to resist the temptation of rebellion. The pair play truant, explore forbidden areas of the old school and - their favourite - torment posh Sylvia Rose, with her pristine uniform and her beautiful voice that wins every singing prize.One day, Sally ventures (unauthorised, of course) up to the greenhouse on the roof alone. Or at least she thinks she's alone, until she sees Sylvia on the roof too. Sally hurries downstairs, afraid of Sylvia snitching, but Sylvia appears to be there as well.Amidst the resurgence of ghost stories and superstition among the girls, a tragedy is about to occur, one that will send Sally further and further down an uncanny rabbit hole...Praise for Shadow Girls: 'A terrific evocation of a bygone Manchester girlhood, poignant and creepy by turns, by one of the most under-rated writers in England' D.J. Taylor 'Compulsively readable, Shadow Girls is an atmospheric, shape-shifting novel, part coming-of-age, part supernatural thriller. Birch renders the atmosphere of the sixties impeccably, and conveys most brilliantly the taut, complicated relationships between teenage girls with all their neediness, bravado and gullibility' Lesley Glaister

London, 1857. Meet Jaf, a young street urchin who survives an encounter with an escaped tiger in the city’s East End and stumbles into a job with its owner, Mr. Jamrach, a collector and seller of wild animals. Commissioned by Jamrach to find and capture a mysterious, exotic creature, Jaf joins a whaling ship bound for the South Seas and begins a wonder-filled voyage of discovery. But when disaster befalls the crew, Jaf ’s journey becomes a desperate survival tale that pushes love, friendship and humanity to their outermost limits. Beautifully written and utterly spellbinding, Jamrach’s Menagerie conjures the smells, sights and flavours of the 19th century, from the squalor of Victorian London to the lush islands of the Dutch East Indies. A great, salty, historical adventure, with an extraordinary story of love and sacrifice at its core, this is an astonishing literary achievement.

Jaffy Brown vokser op under fattige forhold – Londons Docklands anno 1857 stinker af kloak og er befolket af sømænd, tyveknægte og skøger. En dag løber Jaffy ind i en undsluppen tiger på gaden – et smukt og smidigt dyr på vældige poter. Han bliver i sidste øjeblik reddet af tigerens ejer, mr. Jamrach, og oplevelsen bliver hans indgangsbillet til en fremmed og fascinerende verden fuld af eksotisk skønhed, vilde dyr og vidunderlige skabninger. Den vækker også udlængslen i Jaffy, og sammen med sin bedste ven Tim lader han sig hyre som skibsdreng på en hvalfangerbåd, der fører dem ud på en eventyrlig ekspedition med kurs mod det indiske ocean. Det bliver en dramatisk rejse, der fører dem helt til verdens ende og udfordrer alt, hvad de tror på – kærlighed, venskab og medmenneskelighed. "En af de bedste historier, jeg nogensinde har læst. En fuldstændig original bog," – A.S. Byatt Carol Birch (1951) har skrevet i alt 11 romaner og vundet flere litterære priser. Senest var hun shortlisted til Man Booker Prize i 2011 for "Jamrachs menageri". Hun bor i Lancaster, UK, med sin familie.

Dragetid

Kinnaird Buildings, a tenement block in Waterloo, was once quality. Now ancient and blackened, it houses a fringe community of the feckless, the light-fingered, the addicted, who ignore the thuds and screams, and try to patch something together out of the rags and tatters of their lives. At the centre are Judy, resting from emotional entanglements with men, attempting to resist romantic, wayward Jimmy Raffo; and Loretta, fighting poverty and the brutality of her surroundings.

Life in the Palace

Jamrachs menasjeri er et skremmende og storslagent eventyr, som kombinerer mørke og intense litterære kvaliteter med en ekte forkjærlighet for de klassiske eventyrsjangrene. Fattiggutten Jaffy Brown får livet sitt forandret av møtet med en tiger på gaten i London. Noen år senere seiler han ut på sitt livs eventyr, helt til den andre siden av verden for å fange en ildsprutende drage. Ute på det åpne havet oppdager Jaffy vennskapets dybder – og kvaler. Han finner kjærligheten. Men først og fremst må han forsøke å overleve.

Jamrachs menasjeri

The Fog Line

New South Wales, 1817. Margaret Catchpole is stranded at a settler's homestead as the floodwater draws in, and she finds herself facing death - as she has several times before.She looks back over her life - the complex and stormy partnership with Will Laud, a 'hell-born-babe', that led her into the world of smuggling and in to a double life. After Will is forced to flee the country, Margaret is taken on as a nursemaid by the wealthy Cobbold family, but a crime against them means she is tried and sentenced to hang. She avoids death but when an elaborate gaol escape fails, Will is shot dead and Margaret captured. Sentenced once more to hang, she looks death full in the face. But she doesn't die. Her sentence is transmuted to transportation for life to Australia. The novel explores a deeply divided society. Ironically, by reaching the lowest depths and being cast out by the society which spawned her, Margaret finds her true role as an independent pioneer in a young colony.

Scapegallows

This is an extraordinarily haunting novel, inspired by a true story. In the late 1960s, in the hollow of an ancient oak tree beyond a derelict cottage in Cork, were found the bones of a three-year-old girl. It was thought that they dated back to the time of the great potato famine of the mid 1800s. The bones were discovered by an American woman, who had inherited the cottage which had lain empty and broken for forty years. Local searches reveal that the house had originally belonged to The Quinns. Eliza Quinn was their baby. This is a story that speaks of generations and of landscapes: abandoned villages, famine graves, old potato ridges sinking back into the earth, traces of a population that fell by two and a half million in less than ten years. It is also about hunger, both physical and emotional. But above all, it is the story of the Quinn family. And it is Carol Birch's tour de force. 'Deeply rooted humanity and highly intelligent understanding of the simulataneous complexity and simplicity of individual lives' Alex Clark. TLS

The Naming of Eliza Quinn

From Carol Birch comes a novel set in rural Ireland which begins with the discovery of the bones of an infant.

Anita's mother was the mermaid in the Belle Vue Fair Freak Show. Into their lives came Paddy Riley, a young Irish lad whose motto was 'the only crime in life is not to take up a good opportunity'. The opportunity was Anita's mother - hungry for love and romance. Their secret is safe until young Anita, their go-between, spins a jealous lie that tragically catches them all. Now grown with children of her own, Anita has found a kind of peace with a sweet husband, and the past is past. Until that is, a man not unlike Paddy Riley comes to their town. It's an 'opportunity' that Anita cannot, for the life of her, seem to resist.

Carol Birch

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