| The Real Minerva Contributor(s): Sharratt, Mary (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 0618618880 ISBN-13: 9780618618880 Publisher: Mariner Books OUR PRICE: $15.15 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 2006 Annotation: Stunningly detailed, richly plotted, and emotionally engrossing, The Real Minerva is the story of three women forging their own paths in a Midwestern farming community. In 1923, as book-loving Penny enters adolescence, her mother, Barbara, pulls her out of school to send her to work. Destined to become a cleaning woman like her mother, Penny sees no escape from her bleak existence until a scandalous figure arrives in the town of Minerva, Minnesota: Cora, very pregnant, very headstrong, and very alone, has come to make a home on her grandfather's farm. Intrigued by this curious new resident, Penny sets out to work for Cora. Suspenseful and moving, The Real Minerva is a remarkable novel about the strength of women and the unexpected bonds that form between them. Mary Sharratt is the author of the much-acclaimed debut, Summit Avenue, and the forthcoming novel The Vanishing Point. A born-and-bred Minnesotan, Sharratt drew on her mother's and grandmother's stories of Minnesota farm life in the early twentieth century for The Real Minerva. She now lives in Lancashire, England. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Historical - General - Fiction | Literary - Fiction | Women |
| Dewey: FIC |
| Physical Information: 0.72" H x 5.1" W x 7.98" (0.63 lbs) 272 pages |
| Themes: - Demographic Orientation - Small Town - Cultural Region - Midwest - Cultural Region - Upper Midwest - Geographic Orientation - Minnesota - Sex & Gender - Feminine - Chronological Period - 1920's |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Minerva, Minnesota, in 1923 is the picture of Willa Cather-like gentility: the Northern Pacific Railway runs through a town center dominated by church steeples and the Hamilton Creamery and Pop Factory. But Minerva is also a small town of limited opportunity, a place where the status quo is firmly entrenched and rigidly enforced. Against this tableau of midwestern placidity and calm, three Minerva women assert their dignity and independence against all odds. The troubled relationship between young Penny and her mother, Barbara, is getting worse. Disturbed by her mother's affair with the man they clean house for, Penny answers an ad to work for Cora Egan, a Chicago society woman who has fled a bad marriage and intends to raise her child alone on her grandfather's farm. Cora's situation shocks the town, but over time her presence opens a door in Penny's and Barbara's lives. Through these women, Mary Sharratt considers what it takes to reinvent the self, to claim one's true identity. Mary Sharratt's first novel, Summit Avenue, was hailed as a remarkablel debut . . . [that] weaves dark, evocative fairy tales and passionate longings into an incandescent coming-of-age story (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Readers interested in feminine archetypes and women in myth will be similarly drawn to Sharratt's newest novel. Exquisite historical detail and emotional resonance infuseThe Real Minerva, an old-fashioned story with a modern spirit. |
Contributor Bio(s): Sharratt, Mary: - MARY SHARRATT, the author of seven critically acclaimed novels, is on a mission to write strong women back into history. Her novels include Daughters of the Witching Hill, the Nautilus award-winning Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen, The Dark Lady's Mask: A Novel of Shakespeare's Muse, and Ecstasy, about the life, loves, and music of Alma Mahler. She is an American who lives in Lancashire, England. |