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Oystercatchers
 
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Oystercatchers (Hardcover)

by Susan Fletcher (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
RRP: £14.99
Price: £12.74 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 375 pages
  • Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd (5 Feb 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007190255
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007190256
  • Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 352,983 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Review

'Like Candida Clark, Fletcher works that rich vein of poetic prose in which characters' emotions are closely bound up with objects and landscape!a commendably and disturbing successor to "Eve Green".' Rachel Hore, Independent on Sunday 'A mysterious, elemental and, at times, beautifully poetic novel.' Waterstones Books Quarterly '!Fletcher enhances her reputation with this second novel about the relationship between two sisters!Fletcher has a remarkable talent with words!her approach to the world is side-on, not direct; she is attuned to the ambiguities, the spaces, the gaps left in language, the things that are not spoken; she imbues inanimate objects with a life of their own, a history and a personality and a voice. Fletcher is the woman writer par excellence: intelligent, perceptive, intuitive!British readers looking for a local equivalent to Alice Munro won't have to look much further!She is a highly talented writer and fully deserves the acclaim she has received -- and the popularity that goes with it.' The Scotsman 'Her evocation of place is magnificent!Here is a commendably ambitious and disturbing successor to "Eve Green".' Sunday Tribune Praise for 'Eve Green': 'Few coming of age novels have the beguiling power of this one!its lyrical intensity reminiscent of Laurie Lee, this is a precisely observed, immensely compelling and ultimately redemptive first novel.' Sunday Times 'Evokes with a beguiling lyrical muscularity the peaks and troughs in the life of seven-year-old Evie.' Guardian


Waterstones Books Quarterly

'A mysterious, elemental and, at times, beautifully poetic
novel.'

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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
5 star:
 (6)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling tale. , 21 Mar 2007
By kehs (Hertfordshire, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
Sixteen-year-old Amy is in a coma. Her sister, Moira, sits beside her telling her about how sorry she is to not have been a better person, or sister, and is seeking forgiveness. She feels it's her fault that Amy is in hospital and is seeking redemption through her conversations with her. Moira talks about how unkind she has been in her life and the cruelties that she has committed. However, life hasn't always been good to her either and she has suffered at the hands of other people. Moira was an only child until the age of 11, and felt abandoned when Amy came into her life. Shut away at boarding school her resentment grew. She had to cope with the torments of her roommates and led a lonely life until she met the guy who was to become her husband. We also meet Aunt Matilda, who is another lonely character, who is filled with a sense of false happiness and is desperate for love but never quite finding it.

This is a dark tale of envy, loss, loneliness and betrayal, with love and trust being the most desired of all the emotions.

Susan Fletcher spins a story so fluidly that she makes me feel as if I am sitting beside her listening, rather than reading the words from a page. She has a wonderful way of drawing the reader in with her opening sentences and leaving them unable to put the book down.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Tricky to like, 1 Jan 2009
By Ms. M. Edwards (Spain) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
The author said that her heroine, Moira, was 'complicated damaged and tricky to like'. The book is beautifully written but I found Moira to be so selfish that I couldn't like her at all. She had an unhappy childhood and a lonely time at school, but never made the slightest attempt to make friends or to get on with other people. She was frequently quite cruel and was completely self obsessed.
This, together with the fact that none of the other characters (with the exception of Moira's husband Ray) were particularly likeable, made the book, for me, almost impossible to read.
I read Oystercatchers Over Christmas and can honestly say that I certainly wouldn't have finished the book had this not been the last unread book in my house.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Dark, poetic, compelling, 22 Feb 2008
By Suzie (Scotland, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Oystercatchers (Paperback)
I had eagerly awaited this book because I so enjoyed `Eve Green' - as much for the poetry of Susan Fletcher's language as for the story itself. In `Oystercatchers' there are no superfluous words or dialogue. At first, the style seemed jumpy, interspersed with sentences without a verb and commas where I would not expect them. After a while, though, the stark minimalism became mesmerising and `normal' writing dull in comparison.

`Oystercatchers' is much darker than `Eve Green'. Its central character, Moira, is hard to like. She is not someone a reader would wish to identify with. But such is the author's skill that as the story unfolded I became engrossed in Moira's life and began to understand in part why she is like she is.

Sitting at her sister's bedside in an intensive care unit, Moira tells the story in retrospect, alternating between first and third person. Full of remorse, she blames herself for Amy's accident, for not loving her and not spending time with her. But at the age of eleven she saw Amy's birth as an intrusion that shattered her cosy childhood with her parents. This is the focus around which the story revolves.

Having exiled herself to a school in faraway Norfolk, where the other girls make fun of her, she is lonely, immersing herself in her studies and her fascination with science. Distanced from her Pembrokeshire home, her only constant is her Aunt Til who visits from London and takes her out.

The progress of an unattractive school career into adulthood could have been so dull, but Susan Fletcher makes it an engrossing read. It is her insight into her characters as much as her poetic prose that makes this seemingly unappealing novel so attractive. And throughout is the pervasive presence of the sea, spray sparkling against the rocks, the tang of seaweed, the taste of salt on lips.

Try it and see what you think. I loved it, but it might not appeal to everyone.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars and the point was?
The book tells the story of Moira, sitting by the hospital bed of her sister Amy. Moira is telling the story of her life, her schooldays, her love of the sea, her marriage to Ray,... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Jayne M. Turner

5.0 out of 5 stars The oystercatchers
This is one of the most affecting and marvellously written books I have ever read. Part of it is set in Pembrokeshire, and part of it in Norfolk, and being from Norfolk myself, it... Read more
Published 12 months ago by jayne hansard

5.0 out of 5 stars A rare treat
This was a truly remarkable read - it was beautifully written and superbly observed (if that is the right description for fiction). Read more
Published 17 months ago by Sian

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it
I just wanted to say that I agree with all the positive things written about this book
It took a little time to get into, but was well worth the effort. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Mother Bird

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written, wholly engrossing
I read Susan Fletcher's Eve Green after it was recommended to me, and I knew after reading it that I would be a lifelong fan of her poetic style of writing. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Lauren Thomas

3.0 out of 5 stars Very slow, although beautifully written.
I found this book very slow. There was lots of repetition, for example, the house with the green door. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Holly

4.0 out of 5 stars "It is in you then, the sea, a part of you"
In this melancholic, confessional novel, Moira Stone sits by the bedside of her teenage sister, Amy, telling of her days that are now spent in a white, west-facing house on an... Read more
Published on 25 Jul 2007 by Michael Leonard

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