One Life: My Mother's Story

by Kate Grenville

Overview

'Clear, authentic and utterly engaging . . . it is as successful as it is authentic' Independent on Sunday

Born to an unhappy marriage and into a deeply sexist society, Nance Russell worked hard for everything she had, and while the world changed around her, she went on to university, to opening businesses and raising a family. One Life is Nance's story - and many other women's too - beautifully captured by her daughter, the bestselling novelist Kate Grenville. Kate draws on the tales passed down to her to create an evocative portrait of life in twentieth-century rural Australia, and a deeply intimate and caring homage to a mother.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781782116875
Publisher:	Canongate Books
Publication date:	02/25/2016
Edition description:	Main
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Kate Grenville's bestselling novel The Secret River received the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. The Idea of Perfection won the Orange Prize. Grenville's other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian's Story, Dark Places and Joan Makes History.

www.kategrenville.com

Editorial Reviews

Kate Grenville is one of Australia's finest writers . . . her great skill as a writer is to take the barest of biographical details and spin them into something of intricate moral complexity

Telegraph

Wonderful

Independent

Grenville has emerged not only as the truth-teller but also something of a hero . . . her novels are important quests that go beyond art

Irish Times

Kate Grenville has a reputation for elegant prose that cuts to the very heart of her subject matter with breathtaking precision

Vogue

A work of imaginative sympathy, it is as successful as it is audacious . . . Clear, authentic and utterly engaging . . . A microcosm for the changes taking place on the world stage in the period spanned

Independent on Sunday

We are given the portrait of a woman whole. I adored her and the way Grenville wrote about her from every angle

Savidge Reads

The power with which Kate Grenville evokes places and people is so remarkable

DIANA ATHILL

A compelling read . . . very moving . . . Grenville's feminist instincts, which run quietly through her life and writing, built on her mother's example

Sydney Morning Herald

Grenville inhabits characters with a rare completeness . . . She writes with a poet's sense of rhythm and imagery

Guardian

"Written in the third-person, blending her mother's plain, brisk language and her own novelistic skills . . . moving . . . Grenville's feminist instincts, which run quietly through her life and writing, built on her mother's example." —Sydney Morning Herald

"A work of imaginative sympathy, it is as successful as it is audacious . . . Clear, authentic and utterly engaging . . . Provides a microcosm for the changes taking place on the world stage in the period spanned."  —Independent on Sunday

From the Publisher

Kate Grenville has written a beautiful memoir of her mother, Nance, which she reads in a voice that is rich and resonant. Further, her Australian accent and sense of timing provide a marvelous sense of place. Grenville states that Nance was not the sort of person that biographers usually write about since she wasn’t a public figure and didn’t make history. But Nance led an extraordinary life, bucking gender restrictions by becoming a pharmacist (her class of 80 was almost entirely men), laying bricks for a house, and opening her own business. (The supplier of pharmacy drugs would accept only cash from her even though everyone else got credit.) Nance’s life provides a window on twentieth-century social changes. ONE LIFE is a treat further enhanced by a contemplative and intimate narration. A.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2015 - AudioFile