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Breaking The Chain: Drugs And Cycling - The True Story
by Maggie MakepeaceWhen Phoebe married Duncan Moon, she imagined they would get around to loving one another. But she hadn't bargained on the stifling effect on her husband of his alarming family, nor the many ways in which the family would contrive to exclude her from their affluent but hollow lives. It is only when Phoebe reads the hidden diaries of her father-in-law's ex-mistress that she learns the truth about the Moons - and discovers love where she had never thought she'd find it.In this wickedly funny first novel, first published in 1995, Maggie Makepeace paints a devastating portrait of upper middle-class family life. By turns hilarious, painful, tragic and unexpectedly poignant, this is black comedy at it startling best.
Out of Step (Soundings Ser.)
by Maggie MakepeaceNell is content with her life until she falls in love. From the moment she sees Bottom Cottage, deep in a west country valley, she knows she has to have it. But things become more complicated when she meets its owner, Rob, and falls for him as well. All her dreams seem to have come true, but there are disturbing undercurrents beneath the surface. Rob has two young children and an almost-ex wife, and as Nell struggles with her new role as stepmother she finds herself trapped by conflicting interests and undermined by uncertainty. Does Rob really want her, or are all his feelings for his children and the cottage? Did she fall in love with Rob because of his house, or do they have a genuine future together?
Travelling Hopefully
by Maggie MakepeaceFor Imogen Redcliffe leaving a man with an incurable disease was unthinkable. But it didn't stop her longing for her freedom. Perhaps therefore it was dangerous to embark on a holiday with a group of strangers? Two weeks in Seychelles may have seemed like paradise on paper but the reality would prove rather different.In the company of, among others, a sex-starved doctor, a shrewd psychotherapist and a frightened vegetarian, Imogen is forced to face up to her own shortcomings and to take action. It's a liberating experience, but not quite in the way she intended!
The Would-Begetter
by Maggie MakepeaceA Sparkling tale of life, love - and the perils of getting your own way...Hector is in search of a woman. Not because he wants to fall in love but because, after the failure of his first marriage, he wants a son. But as he determinedly pursues his ambition, he underrates the force of his charm and, nine months later, finds he has more than one heir to choose from...In his search for the 'perfect' wife, Hector complicates the lives of four very different women; Jess the repressed photographer, Wendy the fluffy doormat, Caroline the career executive, and Zillah the bohemian. And as Hector strives to bring his life back under control he discovers that biology is stranger than logic, and is forced to acknowledge that it's the best laid plans that often fall most spectacularly apart.
The Imaginary Lives of James Poneke
by Tina MakeretiJames Pōneke is a young Māori orphan, raised by missionaries, with a burning desire to travel and explore the world. When an English artist on a tour of New Zealand invites James to return home with him, the boy eagerly accepts and agrees to become a living exhibit at the artist’s London show.Gainsborough loathes pandering to grand sitters, but he changes his tune when he is commissioned to paint King George III and his large family. In their final, most bitter competition, who will be chosen as court painter, Tom or Sir Joshua?By day, James dresses in full tribal outfit, being stared at, prodded and examined by paying visitors. By night, he is free to explore the city, but anything can happen to a young New Zealander on the savage streets of Victorian London and James is unprepared for the wonders, dangers and unearthed secrets that await.The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke is an unforgettable work of historical fiction in the spirit of Sarah Waters and Sarah Perry.'A historical love letter to London, a coming-of-age story, a love story’ – Stella Duffy‘A riveting vision of the world seen from the inside out. The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke is a gutsy, searing and totally absorbing read. I loved it all the way’ – Fiona Kidman‘Made streets I’ve walked a thousand times seem new and strange’ – Damian Barr
The Blessed Girl
by Angela MakholwaBlessed adj. [pronounced bles-id] The state of being blessed, often referring to a person, usually female, who lives a luxurious lifestyle funded by an older, often married partner, in return for sexual favours. Young, beautiful and ambitious, Bontle Tau has Johannesburg wrapped around her finger. Her generous admirers are falling over themselves to pay for her Mercedes, her penthouse, and her Instagrammable holidays. It's a long way from the neighbourhood she started out in, and it's been far from easy. Along with making sure she always looks fabulous - because people didn't sacrifice their lives in the freedom struggle for black women to wear the same cheap T-shirts they wore during apartheid - Bontle's also hustling to get her business off the ground. And if that wasn't enough, her ex is still refusing to sign their divorce papers. It's not that she stopped loving him, but he was just so stubborn about wasting his medical degree on treating the poor. Yes, Bontle gets the blues from time to time, who doesn't, the shrink keeps wanting to talk about a past she's put firmly behind her. And what she doesn't think about can't hurt her, can it?
Discontinuous Discourses in Modern Russian Literature: (pdf)
by Michael Makin Catriona Kelly David Shepherd Dominique De Rambures
The Archipelago of Another Life
by Andreï MakineOn the far eastern borders of the Soviet Union, in the sunset of Stalin's reign, soldiers are training for a war that could end all wars, for in the atomic age man has sown the seeds of his own destruction. Among them is Pavel Gartsev, a reservist. Orphaned, scarred by the last great war and unlucky in love, he is an instant victim for the apparatchiks and ambitious careerists who thrive within the Red Army's ranks. Assigned to a search party composed of regulars and reservists, charged with the recapture of an escaped prisoner from a nearby gulag, Gartsev finds himself one of an unlikely quintet of cynics, sadists and heroes, embarked on a challenging manhunt through the Siberian taiga. But the fugitive, capable, cunning and evidently at home in the depths of these vast forests, proves no easy prey. As the pursuit goes on, and the pursuers are struck by a shattering discovery, Gartsev confronts both the worst within himself and the tantalising prospect of another, totally different life.Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan
My Armenian Friend
by Andreï MakineMy Armenian Friend is a moving and nostalgic story about how one friendship can shift our perspective and irrevocably change our lives.Set in Siberia in the 1970s during the decline of the Soviet Empire, the adult narrator looks back on a childhood friendship formed with an Armenian boy called Vardan. The narrator becomes Vardan's protector, for the young Armenian's maturity and sensitivity make him a target for schoolyard bullies. The narrator is welcomed by Vardan's family living in exile in a diverse neighbourhood populated by former prisoners, exhausted adventurers and many who have been forcibly uprooted from their homes. Touching anecdotes characterise this text, and powerful memories blending reality and myth are used to recreate a 'kingdom of Armenia' that will have a lasting impact upon the author.
A Woman Loved
by Andreï MakineCatherine the Great's life seems to have been made for the cinema. Countless love affairs and wild sexual escapades, betrayal, revenge, murder - there is no shortage of historical drama. But Oleg Erdmann, a young Russian filmmaker, seeks to discover and portray the real Catherine, her essential, emotional truth.When he is dropped from the film he initially scripted - his name summarily excised from the credits - Erdmann is cast adrift in a changing world. A second chance beckons when an old friend enriched by the capitalist new dawn invites him to refashion his opus for a television serial. But Erdmann is made acutely aware that the market exerts its own forms of censorship. While he comes to accept that each age must cast Catherine in its own image, one question continues to nag at him. Was the empress, whose sexual appetites were sated with favours bought with titles and coin, ever truly loved? In his search for an answer, Erdmann will find a love of his own that brings the fulfilment that filmmaking once promised him.
Brief Loves That Live Forever
by Andreï Makine Andrei MakineIn Soviet Russia the desire for freedom is also a desire for the freedom to love. Lovers live as outlaws, traitors to the collective spirit, and love is more intense when it feels like an act of resistance. Now entering middle age, an orphan recalls the fleeting moments that have never left him - a scorching day in a blossoming orchard with a woman who loves another; a furtive, desperate affair in a Black Sea resort; the bunch of snowdrops a crippled childhood friend gave him to give to his lover. As the dreary Brezhnev era gives way to Perestroika and the fall of Communism, the orphan uncovers the truth behind the life of Dmitri Ress, whose tragic fate embodies the unbreakable bond between love and freedom.
Human Love
by Andreï Makine Andrei MakineAs a child, Elias Almeida loses both his parents during the Angolan uprising against colonial rule. As an adult and professional revolutionary, he bears witness to mankind at its pitiless worst. Yet he continues to believe in a better world and in the redeeming power of love -- even though he cannot be with the woman he loves, who rescued him from thugs one snowy night on the streets of Moscow. Spanning forty years of Africa's past as a battleground between East and West, this powerful novel explores the heights and depths of human nature as it tells a profoundly affecting story of sacrifice and idealism.
Le Testament Francais
by Andreï Makine Andrei MakineLocked behind the Iron Curtain, a young boy grows up bewitched by his French grandmother’s memories of Paris before the Great War. On her balcony overlooking the Siberian steppes, Charlotte Lemonnier fires her grandson’s imagination with tales of the great flood in 1910, of Proust playing tennis in Neuilly and the President dying in the arms of his mistress, of avenues lined with chestnut trees and elegant cafes.Charlotte’s vision of a paradise lost, though, is overlaid by her subsequent experience. As her grandson grows older, he learns how this remarkable woman survived the Russian revolution’s aftermath, Stalin’s purges and the horrors of the Second World War, gaining from her a portrait of the country drawn with an outsider’s eye. Yet for all the monstrosities of his native land, he realises he is proud to be Russian. Torn between two cultures, as an adolescent he turns his back on all things French. Then in his twenties he abandons the Soviet Union and eventually reaches Paris – where a startling revelation awaits him.This luminous, haunting novel traces a sentimental and intellectual journey that embraces the dramatic history of this century.
The Life of an Unknown Man
by Andreï Makine Andrei MakineJilted by his girlfriend and disillusioned by modern France, the writer Shutov revisits St Petersburg after twenty years in exile, hoping to reconnect with his roots and the woman he loved in his youth. But she, and the brash new Russia that greets him, a
A Life's Music
by Andreï Makine Andrei MakineIn a snowbound railway station deep in the Soviet Union, a stranded passenger comes across an old man playing the piano in the dark, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. Once on the train to Moscow he begins to tell his story: a tale of loss, love and survival that movingly illustrates the strength of human resilience.
The Woman Who Waited
by Andreï Makine Andrei MakineWhen a young, rebellious writer from Leningrad arrives in a remote Russian village to study local customs, one woman stands out: Vera, who has been waiting thirty years for her lover to return from the Second World War. As fascinated as he is appalled by the fruitless fidelity of this still beautiful woman, he sets out to win her affections. But the better he thinks understands her the more she surprises him, and the more he gains uncomfortable insights into himself. Lyrically evoking the haunting beauty of the Archangel region, Makine tells a timeless story of the human heart and its capacity for enduring love, selfish passion and cowardly betrayal.
Agatha Christie: Investigating Femininity (Crime Files)
by M. MakinenChristie's books depict women as adventurous, independent figures who renegotiate sexual relationships along more equal lines. Women are also allowed to disrupt society and yet the texts refuse to see them as double deviant because of their femininity. This book demonstrates exactly how quietly innovatory Christie was in relation to gender.
Feminist Popular Fiction
by M. MakinenAn examination of feminist writers' appropriation of a range of popular genres: detective fiction, science fiction, romance and the fairy tale. The author argues that feminists can successfully appropriate all four genres because genres, as cultural productions, have accommodated the cultural changes brought about by second-wave feminism. The book provides a history of each of the genres, reinstating women's contributions in those histories, and a comprehensive review of the feminist critical debates on each of the genres.
The Novels of Jeanette Winterson (Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism)
by M. MakinenThis Reader's Guide brings together, in an approachable form, the range of review and critical material on the novels of Jeanette Winterson. Covering all of Winterson's work, from Oranges are Not the Only Fruit to The PowerBook, Merja Makinen traces the early review reception of each novel on its publication and considers it alongside the larger critical debates that have subsequently evolved. Makinen follows the controversial critical analysis of Winterson as a lesbian writer, and develops the examination of the postmodern aspects of her work, whether as postmodern or post-Modern.Including a brief discussion of Winterson's most recent novel, Lighthouse Keeping, this is an indispensable guide for anyone studying, or simply interested in, the work of one of Britain's most successful contemporary authors.
The Novels of Jeanette Winterson (Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism)
by Merja MakinenThis Reader's Guide brings together, in an approachable form, the range of review and critical material on the novels of Jeanette Winterson. Covering all of Winterson's work, from Oranges are Not the Only Fruit to The PowerBook, Merja Makinen traces the early review reception of each novel on its publication and considers it alongside the larger critical debates that have subsequently evolved. Makinen follows the controversial critical analysis of Winterson as a lesbian writer, and develops the examination of the postmodern aspects of her work, whether as postmodern or post-Modern.Including a brief discussion of Winterson's most recent novel, Lighthouse Keeping, this is an indispensable guide for anyone studying, or simply interested in, the work of one of Britain's most successful contemporary authors.
The Borrower
by Rebecca MakkaiLucy Hull, a young children’s librarian in Hannibal, Missouri, finds herself both kidnapper and kidnapped when her favourite patron, ten-year-old Ian Drake, runs away from home. The precocious Ian is addicted to reading, but needs Lucy’s help to smuggle books past his overbearing mother, who has enrolled Ian in weekly anti-gay classes. When Lucy finds Ian camped out in the library after hours with a backpack of provisions and an escape plan, she allows herself to be hijacked by him and the pair embark on a spontaneous road trip. But is it just Ian who is running away? And should Lucy really be trying to save a boy from his own parents?
The Great Believers: A Novel
by Rebecca MakkaiWINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDALFINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZEFINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDSWINNER OF THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD - BARBARA GITTINGS LITERATURE AWARDFINALIST FOR THE LA TIMES FICTION AWARD'Stirring, spellbinding and full of life' Téa Obreht, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's WifeIn 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup: bringing an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDs epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, he finds his partner is infected, and that he might even have the virus himself. The only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister.Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago epidemic, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways the AIDS crisis affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. Yale and Fiona's stories unfold in incredibly moving and sometimes surprising ways, as both struggle to find goodness in the face of disaster.
The Hundred-Year House
by Rebecca MakkaiThe acclaimed author of The Borrower returns with a dazzlingly original, mordantly witty novel about the secrets of an old-money family and their turn-of-the-century estate, Laurelfield.Meet the Devohrs: Zee, a Marxist literary scholar who detests her parents’ wealth but nevertheless finds herself living in their carriage house; Gracie, her mother, who claims she can tell your lot in life by looking at your teeth; and Bruce, her step-father, stockpiling supplies for the Y2K apocalypse and perpetually late for his tee time. Then there’s Violet Devohr, Zee’s great-grandmother, who they say took her own life somewhere in the vast house, and whose massive oil portrait still hangs in the dining room.Violet’s portrait was known to terrify the artists who resided at the house from the 1920s to the 1950s, when it served as the Laurelfield Arts Colony – and this is exactly the period Zee’s husband, Doug, is interested in. An out-of-work academic whose only hope of a future position is securing a book deal, Doug is stalled on his biography of the poet Edwin Parfitt, once in residence at the colony. All he needs to get the book back on track – besides some motivation and self-esteem – is access to the colony records, rotting away in the attic for decades. But when Doug begins to poke around where he shouldn’t, he finds Gracie guards the files with a strange ferocity, raising questions about what she might be hiding. The secrets of the hundred-year house would turn everything Doug and Zee think they know about her family on its head – that is, if they were to ever uncover them.In this brilliantly conceived, ambitious, and deeply rewarding novel, Rebecca Makkai unfolds a generational saga in reverse, leading the reader back in time on a literary scavenger hunt as we seek to uncover the truth about these strange people and this mysterious house. With intelligence and humor, a daring narrative approach, and a lovingly satirical voice, Rebecca Makkai has crafted an unforgettable novel about family, fate and the incredible surprises life can offer.