Corrigan

(Paperback, Main)

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Description

Mrs. Devina Blunt has lost her beloved husband the Colonel and, with him, her will to live. But when Corrigan rolls up her gravel walk in his wheelchair, Mrs. Blunt's grey, routine existence begins to change in ways that neither she nor anyone who knew her could have imagined. She remodels her perfect house, starts a small-scale farming operation, goes into the antiques business (for charity, of course), learns to drive, and starts drinking champagne with lunch. Mrs. Blunt's daughter Nadine isn't sure what to make of her mother's new life. And when Corrigan has a similar effect on Nadine's friend Sabrina, her suspicions only increase. Is Nadine jealous Paranoid Or is Corrigan really as questionable as she suspects

Reviews

Caroline Blackwood combines a childlike neatness and exactitude of expression with an adult susceptibility to the charm of the unexpected and devious: an effective mix.
The Times Literary Supplement

A fine creationmanic, at times demonic
Penelope Lively,Sunday Telegraphy

Domesticity for Miss Blackwood has never been cozy; she listens for the ticking of the time bomb in the teapot.
Carolyn Geiser,The New York Times Book Review

Funny, frightening and immensely enjoyable. The author writes with an appalled, amused intensity that is completely original but without a trace of pretentiousness. The result is unexpectedly powerful, like a box of chocolates with amphetamine centers.
Francis Wyndham,Sunday Times(London)

One might say Blackwood practices a bullfighters feint. The author waves a red cape at us, knowing we will charge at the wrong target. The best example of this approach isCorrigan. This 1984 novel is Blackwoods loveliest and most craftily assembled work of fiction and, strange to say, her sunniest, though the sunshine arrives late in the day and in an extremely perverse yet logical manner.There is a surprise lurking in its pages that overturns our understanding of what weve read about for a hundred pages or so, an enriching surprise that has been basking more or less in plain sight, but perhaps even more striking is the uncharacteristically wily optimism ofCorrigan.
Gary Indiana,Bookforum

Author Bio

Caroline Blackwood (1931-1996) was born into an aristocratic Irish family of great wealth and renown. She married three talented and famous men: the painter Lucian Freud, the pianist and composer Israel Citkowitz, and the poet Robert Lowell. She worked as a writer and a journalist. Her novel, Great Granny Webster (NYRB) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.