Caroline Blackwood

Two years after the war, the heroine of Caroline Blackwood's partially autobiographical novel is sent to convalesce from a minor operation at her Great Granny Webster's house in Brighton. But the only sea air she experiences are the drafts that creep into the house where she is required to sit quietly with only Richards, the tyrannized maid, and iron-willed, humourless Great Granny Webster for company. As for the rest of the family, her dashing father Ivor is dead in a jungle grave in Burma, mad Grandmother Dunmartin tried to kill her own grandson at his christening, long-suffering Grandfather Dunmartin allowed his estate to fall into ruin while he pretended his wife was sane enough to run it, and even glamorous Aunt Lavinia-though light-hearted-is determinedly suicidal. The laconic tone in which this motley cast of characters is described only adds to the horror-and the hilarity.

Great Granny Webster

Corrigan is at once a mordant comedy of manners and a very modern morality play. Since her husband's death, the increasingly frail Mrs. Blunt has had only her trips to his grave to look forward to. Her raucous housekeeper's conversation, and cooking, are best forgotten. Nadine, her daughter, is an infrequent, uneasy visitor. Then one day a charming, wheelchair-bound Irishman shows up at Mrs. Blunt's door in search of charitable contributions. Corrigan is an arch manipulator, Mrs. Blunt is his mark, and before long we realize that they are made for each other. As the two grow ever more entrenched, Nadine fears for her mother's safety (or is it for her own inheritance?). With Corrigan Caroline Blackwood takes a long, hard look at our dearly beloved notions of saints and sinners, victims and villains, patrimony and present pleasure—and winks.

Corrigan

The Stepdaughter

A portrait of the late Duchess of Windsor focuses on her final days and profiles Maitre Blum, one of France's most powerful lawyers, who controls every aspect of the Duchess's life. 25,000 first printing. First serial, The New York Times Magazine.

The Last of the Duchess

Catalina Martínez Muñoz

Últimas noticias de la duquesa

An investigation into the current state of fox-hunting which aims to give a balanced and fair assessment of the facts, looking at the arguments of its advocates and opponents.

Caroline Blackwood on Hunting

In the Pink

De moord op een 10-jarig meisje in een dorpje in Kent heeft een merkwaardige uitwerking op een exentrieke familie met een even oude dochter die ook in het dorp woont.

The Fate of Mary Rose

Though perhaps better known for her tumultuous marriages to the painter Lucian Freud and poet Robert Lowell, Caroline Blackwood remains a woman whose formidable intellect and artistry indelibly marked every person she met and every sentence she crafted. When he interviewed her a year before her death in 1996, The New York Times chief art critic, Michael Kimmelman, called Blackwood a “strangely dramatic woman: intense and vulnerable, with . . . a dark, razor-sharp sense of humor and an offbeat sensibility.” The same can be said of the mostly female, and often troubled, characters in the stories of this startling new collection. Selections span the entirety of her career, from her first book, For All That I Found There, to Good Night Sweet Ladies, one of her last. The seven evocative nonfiction vignettes draw directly from Blackwood’s fascinating life, from her early difficult years through her days as a quintessential bohemian. Three entirely unpublished stories are included in the collection.

The Collected Stories of Caroline Blackwood

Never Breathe a Word

La figliastra

Collects short stories spanning the author's career, including the tale of a beauty parlor owner upset by an employee's concentration camp tattoo and a birth mother who shares a horrible meal with her son's wealthy adopted mother.

Looks at the nuclear protest camps at Greenham Common, discusses the British Women's Peace movement, and describes public reaction to the protesters

On the Perimeter

When a young girl is found horribly murdered in the woods, Cressida sends for her estranged husband to protect their daughter and discovers that he cannot recall his whereabouts on the night of the murder.

Caroline Blackwood

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