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"Calamity Jane Eyre" arrives at "Cold Comfort Farm" when a hapless young woman with a mysterious past takes a job with an eccentric family of British gentry; a brilliant comedy of manners and identity by a Whitbread-winning young author.
Stella Benson, eager to change her life, answers a classified ad and arrives in a tiny Sussex village that's home to a family slightly larger than life. Stella's hopes for the Maddens may be high, but her station among them--as au pair to their irascible son Martin--is undeniably low. What drove her to leave home, job, and life in London for such rural ignominy? Why has she severed all ties with her family? Why is she so reluctant to discuss her past? And who, exactly, is Edward?
The Country Life is a rich and subtle novel about embarrassment, awkwardness, and being alone; about families, or the lack of them; and about love in some peculiar guises. Rachel Cusk, widely acclaimed in England, makes her American debut with an utterly charming, captivating novel about one young woman's adventures in self-discovery.
Stella Benson, eager to change her life, answers a classified ad and arrives in a tiny Sussex village that's home to a family slightly larger than life. Stella's hopes for the Maddens may be high, but her station among them--as au pair to their irascible son Martin--is undeniably low. What drove her to leave home, job, and life in London for such rural ignominy? Why has she severed all ties with her family? Why is she so reluctant to discuss her past? And who, exactly, is Edward?
The Country Life is a rich and subtle novel about embarrassment, awkwardness, and being alone; about families, or the lack of them; and about love in some peculiar guises. Rachel Cusk, widely acclaimed in England, makes her American debut with an utterly charming, captivating novel about one young woman's adventures in self-discovery.
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Reviews
"A sophisticated confection . . . For this delightful novel about the governess from hell, maybe only the word 'wicked' will do."
The New York Times Book Review
"A brilliant oxymoron--a serious farce so subtle that its command of the reader must called insidious . . . Bright, candid, and modestly humorous, Stella Benson lures us into complicity . . . Cusk's ability to keep us interested in innumerable human collisions is uncanny. We may finally learn Stella's secrets, but she remains as fascinatingly indecipherable as anyone we know."
The New Yorker
"Enchanting . . . A funny, modern Jane Eyre combined with an Anne Tyler-esque tale about escaping from the pressures of an unhappy urban life."
Newsday