Country Girl

A Memoir

De: Edna O'Brien

Narrado por: Edna O'Brien

"Country Girl is Edna O'Brien's exquisite account of her dashing, barrier-busting, up-and-down life."-National Public Radio

When Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation.

Starting with O'Brien's birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her story moves through convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, the wild parties of the '60s in London, and encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans. There is love and unrequited love, and the glamour of trips to America as a celebrated writer and the guest of Jackie Onassis and Hillary Clinton.

Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have imprinted upon and enhanced one lifetime.

Reseñas de la Crítica

Praise for Country Girl

"Ms. O'Brien has long and correctly been recognized as among the greatest Irish writers of the 20th century. She's had an outsize life to match her outsize talent."--Dwight Garner, New York Times

"O'Brien's account of her life is completely irresistible."--Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe

"O'Brien's religion has been literature; to it she has remained devout, with a fervor that is contagious...She is no saint. She is an icon."--Stacy Schiff, New York Times Book Review

"In prose as lyrical and exacting as any in O'Brien's fiction, Country Girl evokes both the solitariness and the adventure of a life devoted to writing."--Megan O'Grady, Vogue

"Edna O'Brien has made of her memories something of both precision and depth, a book that, letting us see her as she was, jumps with an all-consuming curiosity from one lucidly narrated event to another."--Philip Roth

"In Country Girl there is great honesty and struggle, and joy and sorrow leaping together--pure life!"--Alice Munro

"You must suffer to become yourself, and it doesn't get easier. I took heart from Country Girl, both as the self-portrait of a great prose stylist, and an exemplary female survivor."--Judith Thurman, "Best Books of 2012," The New Yorker

"Flashes of prodigious beauty and power."--Hilary Mantel

"The doyenne of contemporary Irish letters did not enjoy a straight-line rise to international fame and critical regard. . .Now, of course, O'Brien's fiction (brilliant short stories as well as novels) is seen for what it always was, richly illuminating and, yes, candid depictions of women's needs and desires, rendered with no sentimentality or salaciousness. . . .Her book is a beautifully expressed testament to a writer's tenacity."-Brad Hooper, Booklist (starred review)

"Demure reflections on her celebrated literary life well lived comprise this lovely memoir....O'Brien always returns to the enduring heart of her writing."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Country Girl is a book of magics, truths, stories, and quiet immensity. No one else could have written it, and no one else could have lived it."-Andrew O'Hagan, author of Be Near Me

"Get ready to applaud, ladies and gentlemen, because there is no one like her. O'Brien, in her 80s, may look like an icon and talk like an icon, but she writes like the thing itself, with prose that is scrupulous and lyrical, beautiful and exact...."-Anne Enright, Guardian (UK)

"When sex fails you, there's always gossip. An excellent memoir, Country Girl provided it in shedloads, along with some moral seriousness to boot."-Louise Doughty, Observer (UK)

"Edna O'Brien's Country Girl shimmers with heart, soul and literary brilliance."-Nancy R. Ives, Library Journal

Beautiful life

I really enjoyed this book. The writing and reflection are intriguing. Being read by the author offers a feeling and authenticity that I am not sure I would have experienced otherwise.

Scheherazade

Would you consider the audio edition of Country Girl to be better than the print version?

Yes...but you will also want the print version to underline and note beautiful phrases and passages..

What did you like best about this story?

Her openness to life and what she calls, "the trampoline of love"

Which scene was your favorite?

Impossible to choose...many ties for first place.

Any additional comments?

I heartily recommend this book. At first, I was distracted by O'Brien's noisy S's, but that would be a silly reason not to dive into this book. She's a wonderful reader/storyteller. Her love of place (and not just Ireland) and her love for people both draw out her powerful gifts of description. Although there are many stories including famous people, I did not pick up any sense that O'Brien considers herself superior. In fact, some of the small cameos of nameless people are the most wonderful, like the night watchman in an Irish castle who passes the time by reciting classical soliloquies. You will catch yourself cringing, thinking, "Don't do it!" as the author makes mistakes that seem predictable, but she conveys the fog of love so well, you realize we've all made mistakes like this.

Needs a Professional Narrator

I bought this book, looking forward to listening to it on a long plane ride. At first, I blamed the flight noise for my inability to clearly hear the book but then once home, I had the same difficulty. Ms. O'Brien's soft voice, while charming, is too low and deep to make this a pleasant listening experience. I switched to the Kindle version and am very happily reading now. The story itself is quite good.

A Feast -- of Time and Place

"Country Girl" by Edna O'Brien is such a pleasure -- particularly to hear it read by the author in her very own, lovely voice.

Excessive name dropping.

The first tenth of this was lovely. But all the name dropping robbed the story.