The True and Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters by Michelle Lovric

The True and Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters by Michelle Lovric

It is the age of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, when Europe burns with a passion for long-flowing locks. And when seven sisters, born into fatherless poverty in Ireland, grow up with hair cascading down their backs, to their ankles, and beyond, men are not slow to recognise their potential.

It begins with a singing and dancing septet, with Irish jigs kicked out in dusty church halls. But it is not the sisters’ singing or their dancing that fills the seats: it is the torrents of hair they let loose at the end of each show. And their hair will take dark-hearted Darcy, bickering twins Berenice and Enda, plain Pertilly, gentle Oona, wild Ida and fearful, flame-haired Manticory – the inimitable narrator of their on-and-off stage adventures – out of poverty, through the dance halls of Ireland, to the salons of Dublin and the palazzi of Venice. It will bring some of them love and each of them loss. For their past trails behind the sisters like the tresses on their heads, and their fame and fortune will come at a terrible price...

Michelle Lovric is devilishly clever, fiendishly comic and generally just an irresistible novelistI delighted in every page * Elizabeth Gilbert *
This is a story to sweep you up and spin you about like a mad Irish jig. It swirls you away amid giddy torrents of language into a fantastical, sensual, yet villainously comic world … As the compulsive power of her narrative increasingly overcomes her plangent mazes of her description, the reader finally realizes that they are in the irresistible hands of a storyteller who portrays not just her period but human nature too * Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times *
Just love her humour and magical flamboyance * Sainsbury’s Magazine *
Has a swagger and style that makes it an enjoyable read * Sunday Times *
Vividly descriptive, it’s an extraordinary book that follows the sisters from bickering childhood hardship through their early singing and dancing stage appearances in dusty church halls to Dublin salons and Venice palazzi * Choice Magazine *
Lined with a penetrating, melancholic beauty * Western Daily Press *
Lined with a penetrating melancholic beauty … The novel is engaging and affecting in a way that will with you long after the page is turned * Irish Examiner *
We loved… the descriptions; we felt we had visited the city after reading the vivid descriptions of Venice … Most of us loved the fast-moving plot, the dark compelling twists and turns of the storyline, and the humour. Some of us even read it twice * Mslexia *

Michelle Lovric is the author of four novels -- Carnevale, The Floating Book (winner of a London Arts Award and chosen as a WH Smith Read of the Week), The Remedy (longlisted for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction) and The Book of Human Skin (a TV Book Club pick in 2011) as well as four children’s books. Her book Love Letters: An Anthology of Passion was a New York Times bestseller. She divides her time between London and Venice. www.michellelovric.com

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781408833414
ISBN 10	1408833417
Title	The True and Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters
Author	Michelle Lovric
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Year published	2014-06-05
Number of pages	480
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.