Canarino
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Author Description
This remarkable debut novel is a vibrant tale of beauty and passion, stalked by desolation. Katherine Bucknell captures the tragedy of a marriage on the brink with extraordinary delicacy and insight and draws us into a compelling world glittering with wealth and social prestige. David is an investment banker; Elizabeth, his wife, is a woman of peerless beauty and refinement. They have two children; their marriage seems perfect. Why does she want him to retire and move home to America? One summer evening David, alone in their empty mansion, receives a phone call from a long-lost friend. So begins a tale about friendship, marriage and betrayal that is filled with unexpected reversals. Canarino is a portrait of intimate relationships set in a world of privilege and achievement. Its characters possess personal gifts in dazzling abundance, yet their appetites to succeed, to be exceptional, tempt them to risk everything. How can we recognise love and friendship? Which are the bonds that bind people longest? What is the cost for the heart of seeking perfection? Like the drink of the title – boiling water over a twist of lemon peel – the prose has a sharp, delicate clarity. Beneath its polished surface lie psychological depths both uncanny and haunting. Canarino is a novel that lingers in the mind, long after the final page has been turned.
Menrva's Summary
THE PULSE
The seemingly perfect marriage of David and Elizabeth faces a sudden, destabilizing crisis when a long-lost friend re-enters their lives, forcing them to confront the fragility of their status and intimacy. David, a high-achieving investment banker, and Elizabeth, his refined wife, navigate a life defined by wealth and social prestige until a single phone call initiates a series of unexpected reversals. The narrative examines the tension between their public success and private desolation, questioning the cost of their pursuit of perfection. Through a lens of psychological scrutiny, the story explores the shifting dynamics of their relationship as they struggle to reconcile their past choices with their current reality.
INSIDE THE PAGES
- A focus on the internal psychological states of characters within a high-status social environment.
- The use of a sharp, clear prose style to contrast with the complex emotional undercurrents.
- A narrative structure that relies on sudden, disruptive events to expose long-standing marital tensions.
- Themes of betrayal and the difficulty of identifying genuine love versus social performance.
- An exploration of the conflict between personal ambition and the stability of domestic life.
- The setting of an empty, opulent mansion as a physical manifestation of the characters' isolation.
- A focus on the long-term consequences of past friendships on present-day commitments.
- The examination of the 'perfection' trap and the high cost of maintaining an idealized public image.
THE COLLECTIVE ECHO
This novel is characterized by its precise, clinical observation of the upper echelons of society and the quiet decay of a marriage. The prose is noted for its clarity, which serves to heighten the sense of unease beneath the characters' polished exteriors. Readers and critics likely find the exploration of the protagonists' motivations to be both haunting and intellectually rigorous. The narrative avoids easy sentimentality, instead opting for a detached examination of how ambition can erode the foundations of intimacy. The work stands as a study of the disconnect between outward achievement and internal fulfillment.
Page Count:
352
Publication Date:
2005-01-01
Publisher:
Harpercollins Pub Ltd
ISBN-10:
0007178662
ISBN-13:
9780007178667
Contemporary
Literary Fiction
Social Commentary
Fiction
Modern fiction
Marriage
Domestic Drama
Community Tags
Other Editions(3)
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