The Juniper Tree
New York Review Books
£12.48
A modern reimagining of a classic fairy tale by one of most bewitching, idiosyncratic British writers of the twentieth century.
Bella Winter has hit a low. Homeless and jobless, she is the mother of a toddler by a man whose name she didn’t quite catch, and her once pretty face is disfigured by the scar she acquired in a car accident. Friendless and without family, she’s recently disentangled herself from a selfish and indifferent boyfriend and a cruel and indifferent mother. But she shares a quality common to Barbara Comyns’s other heroines: a bracingly unsentimental ability to carry on. Before too long, Bella has found not only a job but a vocation; not only a place to live but a home and a makeshift family. As Comyns’s novel progresses, the story echoes and inverts the Brothers Grimm’s macabre tale The Juniper Tree. Will Bella’s hard-won restoration to life and love come at the cost of the happiness of others?
Bella Winter has hit a low. Homeless and jobless, she is the mother of a toddler by a man whose name she didn’t quite catch, and her once pretty face is disfigured by the scar she acquired in a car accident. Friendless and without family, she’s recently disentangled herself from a selfish and indifferent boyfriend and a cruel and indifferent mother. But she shares a quality common to Barbara Comyns’s other heroines: a bracingly unsentimental ability to carry on. Before too long, Bella has found not only a job but a vocation; not only a place to live but a home and a makeshift family. As Comyns’s novel progresses, the story echoes and inverts the Brothers Grimm’s macabre tale The Juniper Tree. Will Bella’s hard-won restoration to life and love come at the cost of the happiness of others?
- | Author: Barbara Comyns, Sadie Stein
- | Publisher: New York Review Books
- | Publication Date: Jan 23, 2018
- | Number of Pages:
- | Language:
- | Binding: Paperback / softback
- | ISBN-13: 9781681371313
- | ISBN-10: 1681371316
- Author:
- Barbara Comyns, Sadie Stein
- Publisher:
- New York Review Books
- Publication Date:
- Jan 23, 2018
- Binding:
- Paperback / softback
- ISBN-13:
- 9781681371313
- ISBN10:
- 1681371316