Love and tragedy converge in a seaside town inThe High Road, a newly reissued novel from Edna OBrien, the author ofGirland one of the most celebrated writers in the English language (NPRsWeekend Edition)
This richly peopled, compellingly readable novel explores the many lives of womenas mystic, mother, daughter, and lover. There is Iris, with her winsome wonsome ways, no longer young; there is Charlotte, a troubled debutante who has fled from society; and there is the narrator, Anna, who feels that her emotional life has folded until she meets a young Spanish girl named Catalina.
Set in a seaside enclave on the Mediterranean coast,The High Roadis a passionate account of lost love and the return to loving, where currents of regret and loneliness clash with a fiery instinct for survival.
Edna OBrien(19302024) was the author of more than twenty-five works of fiction, including
The Country Girls,
The Little Red Chairs, and
The Light of Evening. She received numerous awards, including the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and the Ulysses Medal. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she lived in London for many years.