Abroad | Fiction - www.zzdbook.com

Abroad

Oct 10, 2024 6:36 PM

Author:Penelope Lively

Abroad

A brilliantly funny original short story from Booker Prize winning author Penelope Lively.

'Anyone artistic needed Abroad in the 1950s.'

Paul and his girlfriend are artists in need of subject matter. Arresting, evocative subject matter. So they decide to go Abroad, as much as possible, for as long as possible. Because Abroad is full of well furnished scenery. Particularly peasants. Real, earthy, traditional peasants. Except you shouldn't really call them peasants should you? 'Country people'. Abroad is full of country people.

In this funny, deftly written short story, Penelope Lively satirises an arty student of the 50s, a precursor of the gap year traveller, who hasn't learnt as much from her time Abroad as she likes to think . . .

Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short-story collections for both adults and children. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. Her other books include Going Back; Judgement Day; Next to Nature, Art; Perfect Happiness; Passing On; City of the Mind; Cleopatra's Sister; Heat Wave; Beyond the Blue Mountains, a collection of short stories; Oleander, Jacaranda, a memoir of her childhood days in Egypt; Spiderweb; her autobiographical work, A House Unlocked; The Photograph; Making It Up; Consequences; Family Album, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Novel Award, and How It All Began. She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award. She was appointed CBE in the 2001 New Year's Honours List, and DBE in 2012. Penelope Lively lives in London.

Reviews

A key figure in postwar British culture, whose importance and influence cannot be measured ... distinctive and original

—— David Lodge

'Among the English comic masters of the twentieth century'

—— Guardian

A ceaselessly fresh and adorable body of work ... exasperation made poetry

—— Julie Burchill

Kingsley Amis was a big, humane novelist, interested in all manner of people very unlike himself

—— Philip Hensher

There’s a whiskey-gargling swagger to [Frank Bill’s] Cormac McCarthy-style prose, and each noir tale is savagely addictive.

—— Shortlist

Good Lord, where in the hell did this guy come from? Hits as hard as an ax handle to the side of the head after you've snorted a nose full of battery acid and eaten a live rattlesnake for breakfast. Seriously, I'm warning you in advance: take your heart medication and strap yourself to your bar stool for one of the wildest damn rides you're ever going to take inside a book.

—— Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff

Dark, grim, and achingly beautiful. Frank Bill is one of the most original and compelling voices in this new generation of crime writers.

—— John Rector, author of The Cold Kiss

Some serious hillbilly-noir that had my ears ringing by the end. Open the first page... and duck.

—— Craig Clevenger, author of The Contortionist’s Handbook

A triumph...certain to seal her reputation as our contemporary Chekhov

—— Mirabella

Superlative...She distills a novel's worth of dramatic events into a story of 20 pages

—— Erik Huber

These astonishing stories remind us, yet again, of the literary miracles Alice Munro continues to perform

—— Elle

Goosebumpingly unforgettable

—— New York Observer

Runaway may well be the synthesizing work of one of literature's keenest investigators into the human soul

—— USA Today

The great Alice Munro proves again why short story writers bow down to her

—— Vanity Fair

[Munro] really is the short story writer to beat... Munro has always been fascinated by those moments that tilt our world on its axis, as though the world really does turn on a kiss, but her brilliance lies in the psychological way that she convinces us of that fact

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday

In crystalline prose, she illuminates her characters' hopes and longings

—— Rebecca Rose , Financial Times

[Munro] has been compared to Chekhov and I'm only being slightly tongue in cheek when I say that the honour is entirely his. Dear Life is comprised of 13 rich and startling stories, a must read

—— Niamh Boyce , Irish Independent

I haven’t even finished all of Dear Life, but Alice Munro’s stories have lived with me for such a long time and with such quiet passion that I’m barely capable of explaining why

—— Shahidha Bari , Times Higher Education

[Munro’s] talent is formidable but she has never been self-seeking: her short stories have a subtle, covert brilliance

—— Kate Kellaway , Observer

These stories won’t give you easy moral comfort, but will stretch you. They’re moral in that they name things as they are

—— Father Ronald Rolheiser , Catholic Herald

Dear Life is a dazzling portrait of ordinary existence which illustrates how seemingly insignificant meetings and moments can have a monumental impact

—— Upcoming

This collection is beautiful; full of pure, simple truths that linger long in the mind

—— Philip Womack , New Humanist

Previous Article：Flypaper Next Article：A Darker Shade of Blue

Comments

Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.