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Binnie Brennan

Autore di Harbour View (Quattro Books Novella)

3 opere 9 membri 3 recensioni

Opere di Binnie Brennan

Like Any Other Monday (2014) 3 copie
A Certain Grace (2012) 1 copia

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Utenti

Recensioni

In Binnie Brennan's first novel Like Any Other Monday it is 1916 and young Billy Pascoe has been forced by his father's alcoholism to quit The Three Pascoes, the successful stage act he shared with his parents all through his childhood. At an actors' colony where he's gone to take stock of his career, he meets the Hart sisters, Norma and Lucinda, whose own career as a song-and-dance team has ended because of Norma's pregnancy. Overcoming their doubts and fears, Billy and Lucinda partner up to become Pascoe and Hart, and with Norma's help devise a new act which they take out on the road. The bulk of the action takes place over the next three months, during which they travel from one vaudeville stage to the next, their act slowly building momentum, going from success to success until people are lining up to see them. Then the offers arrive, offers that will take them in different directions but propel their careers to new heights. The best scenes are the ones that show us the two young performers backstage and on stage, working together, calibrating their movements, refining their gestures, boosting each other's confidence, and in the process getting to know one another. Midway through their tour as Pascoe and Hart, the story of Billy and Lucinda becomes a gentle love story, though it remains intent on providing a glimpse into an important period in the history of the performing arts. In addition, the understated drama demonstrates that people in constant close contact with one another, whose fates are intimately connected moment by moment while performing in front of an audience, must learn to trust one another implicitly, or else fail. Making liberal use of details from Buster Keaton's early life story, Binnie Brennan has written a quietly impressive novel that evokes a time that most of us rarely think about.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
icolford | Apr 1, 2015 |
These are stories of longing and loss that aim, sometimes, to tug at heartstrings. Binnie Brennan is not afraid to place emotion at the forefront of her narrative, particularly in cases where a character is mourning the loss of a loved one. But often the crux of these stories can be found in an encounter, the sudden or prolonged intersection of two lives that briefly illuminates a moment in time, shining a light on the past and enriching those lives with new understanding. Brennan's voice in these stories is terse and truthful. The stories are uncompromising. A quick read but one that will get you thinking.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
icolford | Nov 3, 2013 |
Harbour View, Binnie Brennan's prize-winning novella, closely resembles—in structure if not intent—a collection of linked short stories. The novella’s six untitled chapters are set either completely or in large part in a nursing home overlooking Halifax Harbour. Each of the chapters is narrated from the point of view of a different character: a resident or staff member of the facility. As we might expect from a work of fiction that concerns itself with elderly men and women and those who care for them, memory looms large in these pages. Buddy, who is celebrating his 109th birthday, is consumed by memories of his children, all of whom are dead, and by a unique musical heritage that is embodied in a fiddle constructed by his great grandfather and passed down from one generation to the next. Dahlia, tormented by aches and pains, dreads her bath, finds the chatter of the caregivers irritating and misses her partner Ronnie. Violet is writing down the story of her time as an artists' model for her niece, and Myrna keeps herself busy reading her mother's diary and tries to hide her chagrin when her son and his wife announce they are selling the family home. None of these people are especially unhappy or burdened with regret, but neither are they in a mood to celebrate the days they have left. They are simply aware that their best years are behind them and have grown accustomed to the indignities of old age and living in the shadow of death. Brennan is an observant, pragmatic and sympathetic writer who treats her characters with respect even as she zeroes in on their weaknesses and vulnerabilities—this is true as well of the two chapters that focus on staff of the nursing home. Throughout the book the writing is plain but effective and conveys deep emotion with great subtlety. In her debut work of fiction Binnie Brennan finds drama in small things and grants a voice to a group that doesn’t often get to speak for itself. Her triumph is that she does so with compassion while avoiding sentimentality.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
icolford | Oct 27, 2013 |

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Statistiche

Opere
3
Utenti
9
Popolarità
#968,587
Voto
3.2
Recensioni
3
ISBN
4