Motherland - Hardcover

O'Grady, Timothy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805012303 ISBN 13: 9780805012309

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1989

Synopsis

With the aid of his dying grandfather and a tamed monkey, a writer searches for his mother across time, space, and reality, journeying to a troubled Ireland

About this title

From Library Journal:

O'Grady's first novel is an oddly fascinating tale in the tradition of magical realists like Garcia Marquez. Arriving at his Dublin home to find his mother gone, her pet monkey shrieking, and her turtle dead, the narrator, an obese, web-fingered clairvoyant, embarks on a quest. With the help of his grandfather and an ornately bound chronicle of the Synnotts, a Norman family who came to Ireland in the 12th century, he finds not only the whereabouts of his mother, but the truth of his own and Ireland's past. His recognition of the necessary complementarity of a divided country and people is at once compelling and genuinely realized. Highly recommended.
- Donald P. Kaczvinsky, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Irish eccentrics populate this tale told by a grotesque, melancholy man whose search for his missing mother mirrors Ireland's own divided and paradoxical past. "Sometimes mystical, frequently ironic, O'Grady's narrator speaks with a rare eloquence that gives this odyssey a grandeur seldom encountered in contemporary fiction," said PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0805012303
• ISBN 13: 9780805012309
• Binding: Hardcover