The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald's novel of pre-revolutionary Moscow, shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Featuring an introduction by Andrew Miller."Fitzgerald was the author of several slim, perfect novels. The Blue Flower and The Beginning of Spring both had me abuzz for days the first time I read them. She was curiously perfect."-- Teju Cole, author of Open City
"Writing so precise and lilting it can make you shiver." -- Los Angeles Times
March 1913. Moscow is stirring herself to meet the beginning of spring. English painter Frank Reid returns from work one night to find that his wife has gone away; no one knows where or why, or whether she'll ever come back. All Frank knows for sure is that he is now alone and must find someone to care for his three young children. Into Frank's life comes Lisa Ivanovna, a quiet, calming beauty from the country, untroubled to the point of seeming simple. But is she? And why has Frank's bookkeeper, Selwyn Crane, gone to such lengths to bring these two together?
Throughout the last two decades, PENELOPE FITZGERALD has written a number of little books that have received enormous popular and critical praise. Her novels have sold over 300,000 copies, and portraits of her life have appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. Her work Offshore received the Booker Prize in 1979, and her novel The Blue Flower won the National Book Critics Circle Prize in 1998. Despite the fact that Fitzgerald began her writing career in her 60s, her work was recognized as the strongest argument... for a late-career publishing debut (New York Times Book Review).
She told the New York Times Magazine, I might have written books in all that time and I didn't. I believe that you can write at any point in your life. Dinitia Smith quoted Penelope Fitzgerald from 1998 in her New York Times obituary on May 3, 2000, saying, I have remained faithful to my deepest convictions, I mean to the courage of those who are born to be vanquished, the vulnerabilities of the strong, and the tragedy of misunderstandings and squandered opportunities, which I have done my best to present as comedy, because how else can we bear it?
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780544484115 |
| ISBN 10 | 0544484118 |
| Title | The Beginning of Spring |
| Author | Penelope Fitzgerald |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Harper Paperbacks |
| Year published | 2015-04-21 |
| Number of pages | 272 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |