The Care and Management of Lies
A Novel of the Great War
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- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی
Narrator Nicola Barber builds tensions and personalities with a delicate touch. Newlyweds Tom and Kezia keep busy with the family farm even as the ominous rumblings of WWI are being felt around the world. Barber keeps her performance understated and charming. Later, as Tom fights on the front in France, his sister, Thea, Kezia's best friend, enlists as an ambulance driver. From the homefront, Kezia writes to Tom, describing sumptuous meals she imagines preparing for him. Barber's sensitive delivery of Winspear's precise period details and mannered character behaviors is entirely convincing. Listeners spend time with a group of ethical, decent people, and Barber makes them real. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
May 12, 2014
The Great War’s impact on the home front and battlefield is portrayed in Winspear’s (the Maisie Dobbs series) winning stand-alone tale about two girlfriends and how their disparate lives entwine when one of them marries the other’s brother. Kezia and Thea couldn’t be more different: Kezia is a vicar’s daughter and Thea (originally called “Dorrit”—from Dorothea—by her Dickens-loving family) grew up on the family farm as a tomboy, competing with her younger brother, Tom. Both girls were scholarship students, but it’s their differences that bind them. Tensions rise when Kezia becomes engaged to Tom. Thea doubts her city-born friend can manage farm life and, as a dig, gives her The Woman’s Book, a publication advising women on a variety of subjects. Excerpts from it, as well as from military manuals of the time, set up chapters told from varying points of view, including that of Edmund Hawkes, a member of the gentry and Tom’s neighbor, who becomes Tom’s commanding officer. Tom enlists and becomes his sergeant’s whipping boy; Kezia thrives as mistress of the farm; and Thea transforms from being a suffragist and pacifist to running an ambulance on the front lines. To keep up Tom’s spirits, Kezia sends letters detailing the imaginary scrumptious meals she’s prepared for him, which he shares with his comrades. While questioning war’s value and showing its terrible effects off the battlefield, Winspear fashions a stunning trajectory for her main characters. Agent: Amy Rennert, Amy Rennert Agency.
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