Sylvie is half French and half English. Since the death of her mother, she has written weekly letters to her father in London. When he too dies unexpectedly, she waits for the letter she knows he must have posted before his death. And as she waits, her carefully ordered life finally begins to unravel. Janet Davey's mesmerising first novel has the deceptive simplicity of a perfect piece of chamber music, or a Vermeer interior. Set in the Meuse - an area of France that is on the way to everywhere but nowhere in itself - it involves a small cast of characters who move around each other in a complex game of emotional chess. Sylvie and her husband own a small hotel. He cooks; she runs it. Their lives are lived in public, as if they are permanently on stage - not ideal if your marriage is crumbling. The death of both her parents crystallises Sylvie's sense that she has made all the wrong choices. But to change anything would bring the whole fragile card tower tumbling down. Brilliantly observed, delightfully witty and beautifully written, English Correspondence condenses all the major questions of adult life - love, marriage, children, grief - into the time it takes to arrange a funeral and discover what happened to a missing letter. It marks the debut of a writer to rank alongside Jean Rhys in the incisive exploration of human desire and weakness.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
English Correspondence
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'A beguiling and beautiful novel whose quietly intelligent surface conceals dramatic depths. I hope it gets the attention it deserves.' -- Doris Lessing
'A superb piece of writing … elegant and subtle in a way you don't see very often these days.' -- Joanne Harris (author of Chocolat)
'I fell on ENGLISH CORRESPONDENCE with joy. I purred over its sheer intelligence, its quiet wit...' -- Margaret Forster. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
'A superb piece of writing … elegant and subtle in a way you don't see very often these days.' -- Joanne Harris (author of Chocolat)
'I fell on ENGLISH CORRESPONDENCE with joy. I purred over its sheer intelligence, its quiet wit...' -- Margaret Forster. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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The first novel from the hugely acclaimed Janet Davey was longlisted for the Orange prize and widely praised - 'a superb piece of writing' (Joanne Harris) and 'an engrossing novel' Observer (2003-04-02)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful
By La Chanteuse
Format:Hardcover
Janet Davey's debut novel - which has just been nominated for the Orange prize - is a masterpiece of understated writing. Quietly and unostentatiously - like her central character, Sylvie - Davey creates a vivid picture of interlocking, fragmenting lives; a group of characters with Sylvie at their nexus who are going through fundamental changes. Intense passion lurks under the surface throughout, but is rarely allowed to break the superficial tranquillity that reigns in the hotel Sylvie runs with her husband. English Correspondence is a beautifully written and evocative account of the intense and hidden battles that are fought inside the hearts of the middle-aged; it's mid-life crisis but not like you've ever read it before. And it's one of those novels whose characters stay with you long after you've closed the book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This depiction of a marriage in rural France is full of sad but beautiful truths, and the dialogue is so truthful it makes you cry in empathy and frustration.There is something very touching and delicate about the amoral way this is written, that makes it very thought-provoking.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By Plastic Mars
Format:Paperback
Sylvie runs a hotel jointly with her husband in isolated, rural France. In the aftermath of her father's death, she awaits the letter she is sure he must have written before he died.
There's nothing wrong with the prose in this well-crafted novel, but the situation and the main character are not to my taste. Sylvie's sphere of influence extends no further than the hotel, where she is Paul's competent, well-groomed but disinterested helpmeet. Strangers encountered in a cafe and at the hotel are almost magically better-attuned to Sylvie's unvoiced desires than her husband and in-laws. Sylvie's dislocation from her daily routine gives a strong sense of inertia and powerlessness, but her lack of decisive action is frustrating and hard to empathise with, given the lacuna that is her interior life. Her behaviour seems more of her parents' generation than her own.
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