A glimmering collection of new short fiction from the Booker Prize
winner.
"Lively writes with an astringent blend of sympathy and detachment,
emotional wisdom and satiric wit." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York
Times
In such acclaimed novels as The Photograph, Family Album, and How It
All Began, Penelope Lively has captivated readers with her singular
blend of wisdom, elegance, and humor. Now, in her first story collection
in decades, Lively takes up themes of history, family, and relationships
across varied and vividly rendered settings.
In the title story, a Mediterranean purple swamp hen chronicles the
secrets and scandals of Quintus Pompeius's villa, culminating with his
narrow escape from the lava and ash of Vesuvius. "Abroad" captures the
low point of an artist couple's tumultuous European road trip, trapped
in a remote Spanish farmhouse and forced to paint a family mural and
pitch in with chores to pay for repairs to their broken-down car. Other
stories reveal friends and lovers in fateful moments of indiscretion,
discovery, and even retribution--as in "The Third Wife," when a woman
learns her husband is a serial con artist and turns a house-hunting trip
into an elaborately staged revenge trap.
Each of these delightful stories is elevated by Lively's signature
graceful prose and eye for the subtle yet powerfully evocative detail.
Wry, charming, and keenly insightful, The Purple Swamp Hen and Other
Stories is a masterful achievement from one of our most beloved
writers.
