Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead

De: Barbara Comyns

Narrado por: Kristin Atherton

That evening the baker's wife ran down the village street in a tattered pink nightgown. She screamed as she ran.

Strange things are afoot in the English village where the Willoweed family live. First, the river floods in June. The family wakes to find ducks sailing around the drawing room and dead peacocks bobbing in the garden. But the flood is only the beginning of their troubles.

All of a sudden the miller goes mad and drowns himself. Then the butcher slits his throat. A peculiar illness is spreading through the town and picking off its victims one by one.

From the Willoweed cottage, sisters Emma and Hattie watch the tragedy unfold. They have grown up in the village, cared for by their meek father and bullied by their grandmother with her enormous ear trumpet. The wild and mysterious countryside is the only world they have ever known. But as the virus spreads and hysteria grips everyone around them, they realise their lives are about to change forever.

A twisted pandemic parable and a tragicomic gem.

Barbara Comyns (1909–1992) was born in England and raised in the care of governesses who allowed her and her siblings to run wild. She began writing and illustrating her work when she was a girl and in her teens, attended art school. She then married a painter and had two children. To support her family, she dealt in antiques and vintage cars, renovated apartments, and bred poodles. She later lived in Spain and died in 1992, leaving two children, several grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and eleven books.

©2023 SAGA Egmont (P)2023 SAGA Egmont

Reseñas de la Crítica

One of the most distinctive voices in English literature - and ripe for rediscovery.
-- Telegraph

Surreal and Funny - A One of a Kind Book

Sometime, I'm going to put together a list of books that I love--but have trouble recommending to anyone. This one will be toward the top of that list. I find it hilarious and creepy and surreal and just filled with memorable lines and characters. It's a totally unique artistic achievement, and Kristin Atherton is perfect for what feels like an impossible book to interpret. If you're open to the strange, this is an excellent read/listen.

Delightful & Yet Gruesome

Like Roald Dahl for adults, a strangely winsome and yet horrifying novel. The historical fact at its core was unknown to me before this, and knowing that it could and had happened, in a sense, added a layer of sadness to what I thought for a long time was a form of speculative fiction mixed with a fairy tale. If you lose heart, keep going—there is sunlight for many characters at the end.