Annotation
"Country Girl is Edna O'Brien's exquisite account of her dashing, barrier-busting, up-and-down life."-National Public Radio When Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation. Starting with O'Brien's birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her story moves through convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, the wild parties of the '60s in London, and encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans. There is love and unrequited love, and the glamour of trips to America as a celebrated writer and the guest of Jackie Onassis and Hillary Clinton. Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have imprinted upon and enhanced one lifetime.
Author Notes
Edna O'Brien, author of The Country Girls Trilogy A Fanatic Heart, The Light of Evening, Saints and Sinners, and other widely acclaimed books, is a recipient of the Ulysses Medal, the 2011 Frank O'Connor Short Story Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the National Arts Club Gold Medal, and the Irish PEN Lifetime Achievement Award, and is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Country Girl received the Argosy Nonfiction Book of the Year prize at the Irish Book Awards, Born and raised in the west of Ireland, O'Brien has lived in London for many years.
| Genre | NonFiction Literary Memoir |
| Topics | Writers Irish women Literary life May-December romances 1960s culture Love affairs Singles lifestyle Personal narratives |
| Setting | Ireland England New York |