Mrs. Osmond: A novel
Books / Hardcover
Books › Fiction › Historical › General
ISBN: 0451493427 / Publisher: Knopf, November 2017
Presents a continuation of the story of Isabel Archer, the heroine of Henry James' "The Portrait of a Lady," that finds her receiving an unexpected inheritance and married to a cruel man before returning to her home in Italy at the side of an unexpected companion.
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"From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea and The Blue Guitar--a dazzling new novel that extends the story of Isabel Archer, the heroine of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, into unexpected (and completely stand-alone) territory. Isabel Archer is a young American woman, swept off to Europe in the late nineteenth century by an aunt who hopes to round out the impetuous but naive girl's experience of the world. When Isabel comes into a large, unexpected inheritance, she is finagled into a marriage with the charming, penniless, and--as Isabel finds out too late--cruel and deceitful Gilbert Osmond, whose connection to a certain Madame Merle is suspiciously intimate. On a trip to England to visit her cousin Ralph Touchett on his deathbed, Isabelis offered a chance to free herself from the marriage, but nonetheless chooses to return to Italy. Banville follows James's story line to this point, but Mrs. Osmond is thoroughly Banville's own: the narrative inventiveness; the lyrical precision and surprise of his language; the layers of emotional and psychological intensity; the subtle, dark humor. And when Isabel arrives in Italy--along with someone else!--the novel takes off in directions that James himself would be thrilled to follow"--
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