Elizabeth Bowen The Enforced Return [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Bowen: The Enforced Returnoffers an imaginative new reading of the work of a writer still too little known. Neil Corcoran considers the theme of return in her work in various senses, examining her treatment of Ireland, children, and war. Relating her work to some significant non-fictional material, he offers a view of her as a writer who returns us anew to the history of her time, and of ours.

Introduction
1. Ireland
1. The Ghost in the House: 'Bowen's Court' (1942) and 'The Back Drawing-Room' (1926)
2. Discovery of a Lack: 'The Last September' (1928)
3. A Gost of Style: 'A World of Love' (1955)
2. Children
1. Mother and Child: 'The House in Paris' (1935)
2. Motherless Child: 'The Death of the Heart' (1938)
3. Childless Mother: The Disfigurations of 'Eve Trout or Changing Scenes'
3. War
1. Words in the Dark: 'The Demon Lover and Other Stories'
2. War's Stories: 'The Heat of the Day' (1946) and its Contexts

Insightful.... [Corcoran] is eloquent throughout on two of the strongest strains in Bowen's work: her hauntedness, and what he calls 'the gift or pain or dislocation of living between Ireland and England, of being bilocated.' --The New York Times Book Review

Offer[s] an unobstructed view of recurring patterns of thematic, formal, stylistic, and linguistic 'return' in Bowen's work.... Corcoran constructs an impressive interpretation of the revenants, ghosts, and doubles in Bowen's writing as manifestations of the political unconscious in her texts. --Choice