- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Black and White Publishing (30 Aug 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1845021290
- ISBN-13: 978-1845021290
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,431,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"McDowell combines literary and psychological analysis to offer a new approach to the age-old theme of reconciliation and self-discovery." - Scotland on Sunday "The end comes together beautifully, drawing together the well-written strands of the story in a sweet shot of emotion." - The Herald 'McDowell's confident writing boasts smart dialogue and subtle lyrical style throughout.' - Scottish Review of Books 'A beautifully written and utterly compelling debut novel' - Emma Tennant"
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I've been meaning to review this book for absolutely ages because it annoyed me so much. I bought it after seeing the author at a festival, because she made it sound really good. It isn't. It plods on - there's not much of a story - and the characters are very boring. In fact, everything about this book is a bit dull. The writer seems to me to be striving to be something she isn't, like she's aiming for the booker longlist or something. But she's miles off. I didn't bother wasting my time to finish it and I wouldn't recommend it.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The heroine of this excellent first novel is Sadie, a young English Literature lecturer from Glasgow, who has just secured a temporary post at a university in a 'quiet Scottish seaside town' (clearly meant to be St Andrews). One strand of The Picnic charts in gruesomely compelling detail the problems she encounters with patronising colleagues and aggressive students. These (semiautobiographical) episodes perfectly capture the insecurities and anxieties experienced by junior academics trying to secure that vital first permanent post. The description of Sadie's encounter with an eminent visiting professor, an appalling woman called Madeleine Bower, is particularly striking - I'd like to think this was an invented incident but academics can be quite breathtakingly rude, so probably not ...
The other strand, which took a little longer to get going but which ended up being still more absorbing than Sadie's narrative, focuses on Sadie's mother, Lily, and her ambivalent relationship with her own mother, Rubina. We gradually learn more about the mystery surrounding Rubina's sudden disappearance from a family picnic in Toronto when Sadie was a little girl. This section of the novel starts to intersect with Sadie's own experiences when she begins to research the mother daughter relationship in literature.
I thoroughly recommend this novel - and look forward to reading more by Lesley McDowell.
The other strand, which took a little longer to get going but which ended up being still more absorbing than Sadie's narrative, focuses on Sadie's mother, Lily, and her ambivalent relationship with her own mother, Rubina. We gradually learn more about the mystery surrounding Rubina's sudden disappearance from a family picnic in Toronto when Sadie was a little girl. This section of the novel starts to intersect with Sadie's own experiences when she begins to research the mother daughter relationship in literature.
I thoroughly recommend this novel - and look forward to reading more by Lesley McDowell.
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