A Spell of Winter: WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

Product Information

Although I was expecting more plot, and more revelation, this is more a study of sadness or an exploration of family. The entire extent of their secrets never was revealed to me, and my nose for scandal was never fully rewarded. The scandal I did see, however, was enough to ensure my nose returned pointing firmly at my feet, and I’m sure my eyes and ears tried to close themselves at certain points also. Helen Dunmore 1952–2017". The Poetry Society. Archived from the original on 3 January 2018 . Retrieved 3 January 2018. I was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children. My father was the eldest of twelve, and this extended family has no doubt had a strong influence on my life, as have my own children. In a large family you hear a great many stories. You also come to understand very early that stories hold quite different meanings for different listeners, and can be recast from many viewpoints.

Set largely in the build up to WWI, the story is narrated by Catherine, a young woman who feels increasingly cut off from the outside world. Abandoned by her mother as a child, embarrassed by the mental breakdown of her father that led to his hospitalisation, and ignored by the grandfather who finds too much pain in her resemblance to his absent daughter, she clings to her brother, Rob, for comfort. Hunkering down for the winter in their secluded, crumbling mansion, their mutual misplaced need for love takes their relationship down a dark and dangerous path that will pit them against the few who remain close to them.Helen Dunmore’s spellbinding, lyrical prose is close to poetry. She writes like an angel and the compelling turn-of-the-century story she so skillfully unfolds in A Spell of Winter makes the emotions churn and tingle. . . . This is a marvelous novel about forbidden passions and the terrible consequences of thwarted love. It is also about the almost mystical bond between mothers and daughters, and I defy any woman to read the final paragraphs without tears streaming down her face. . . . Dunmore is one of our finest writers.”” The Daily Mail The book takes place during pre first World War Britain and focuses on two children; Cathleen and her brother Rob. When both children were young, their mother ran away, Something their father was not able to accept and it eventually leads to madness. During the 1980s and early 1990s I taught poetry and creative writing, tutored residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome. I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.

A Spell of Winter follows the lives of Cathy and Rob before, during and after World War I. Their mother abandons the family home when they are children and their father dies, leaving them to grow up in a decaying mansion cut off from the rest of the world. Their sense of isolation and dependency on each other mutates into incest. It is testament to the strength of Dunmore’s writing that she delivers truths about love and loss through the vehicle of such ingrained taboo. I didn’t merely believe in their relationship, I wholeheartedly rooted for it. For me, that is the power of writing, right there. Her best known works include the novels Zennor in Darkness, A Spell of Winter and The Siege, and her last book of poetry Inside the Wave. She won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction, the National Poetry Competition, and posthumously the Costa Book Award. [3] Biography [ edit ] Helen Dunmore FRSL (12 December 1952 – 5 June 2017 [1]) was a British poet, novelist, and short story and children's writer. [2] Helen Dunmore – Literature". British Council Literature. Archived from the original on 4 January 2018 . Retrieved 6 June 2017.

Helen Dunmore

On one hand I liked the way the novel is insightful: Catherine’s state of mind when she finds out that the world is changing, the minute descriptions of all the characters and the little twists and turns in the narrative. yet, I found this book to be dull. I know the characters go through a lot but I felt nothing for them. Although I do like good writing, it does cross that fine line into being overwrought – sometimes the melodrama is amped up and other times it goes into overload. Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize. Comparing herself to the beautiful Livvy, a dowdier Cathy thinks: “I was too like my mother. My face made people think of the things men and women did together in the dark” (p. 66). What does she mean? What kind of face forces people into shame? Contrast this with the shame that Miss Gallagher attempts to stir up in people.

Cain, Sian (5 June 2017). "Poet and author Helen Dunmore dies aged 64". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 5 June 2017 . Retrieved 5 June 2017.I thought of it hanging in the pantry, with blood coagulating in a white china dish under it. It was always cold in there, because the pantry faced north and there were big, chill marble slabs on which meat rested. Wire mesh covered a small window which looked out to a bank of earth. There was always a faint, iron smell of blood. You had to know how long to hang each creature. So long for a piece of venison, so long for a pheasant or a hare. Grandfather knew everything about hanging animals. But you didn’t call them animals once they were shot, you called them game. Like you called people corpses. Scenes of madness are prominent plot devices in this novel. From the helpless father to the domineering governess, or even the exuberant Mr. Bullivant, the reader encounters off-kilter behavior. Give examples of when Cathy’s sanity could be called into question. Which characters are the most stable? Which character is accused of madness without the reader experiencing it firsthand? A Spell of Winter is a difficult book to categorize and difficult to explain without giving too much away - but it follows siblings Cathy and Rob who have spent their lives in a quasi-abandoned manor in the English countryside which belonged to their parents; their father is now dead and their mother ran off when they were young. As adults, Cathy and Rob's relationship begins to develop into something forbidden, and it sets off a tragic chain of events that spread into the years of the First World War. News And Publicity | Bloodaxe Books". www.bloodaxebooks.com. Archived from the original on 11 June 2017 . Retrieved 5 June 2017.