Showing results by narrator "Deidre Rubenstein" in All Categories

Tells the story of Alex Gray, a woman possessed by several varied personalities, and who sees life through a shifting kaleidoscope of reality. The last Patrick White novel published in his lifetime, Memoirs of Many in One presents the eccentric, often fantastical recollections of the ageing actor, Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray. These are ‘edited’ by the writer Patrick White, her friend and executor, who is often the target of her scorn. Witty and affecting, Memoirs reveals another side of White’s fiction even as it echoes many of the themes running through his work.

Tells the story of Alex Gray, a woman possessed by several varied personalities, and who sees life through a shifting kaleidoscope of reality. The last Patrick White novel published in his lifetime, Memoirs of Many in One presents the eccentric, often fantastical recollections of the ageing actor, Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray. These are ‘edited’ by the writer Patrick White, her friend and executor, who is often the target of her scorn. Witty and affecting, Memoirs reveals another side of White’s fiction even as it echoes many of the themes running through his work.

To hesitate on the edge of life or to plunge in and risk change - this is the dilemma explored in The Living and the Dead. Patrick White's second novel is set in '30s London and portrays the complex ebb and flow of relationships within the Standish family. Mrs Standish, ageing but still beautiful, is drawn into secret liaisons, while her daughter Eden experiments openly and impulsively with left-wing politics and love affairs. Only the son, Elyot, remains an aloof and scholarly observer - until dramatic events shock him into sudden self-knowledge.

Elizabeth Hunter, an ex-socialite in her 80s, has a mystical experience during a summer storm in Sydney which transforms all her relationships: her existence becomes charged with a meaning which communicates itself to those around her. From this simple scenario Patrick White unfurls a monumental exploration of the tides of love and hate, comedy and tragedy, impotence and longing that fester within family relationships.

“The book I most often give as a gift to cheer people up.” —Hilary Mantel * “Tart, beguiling, witty and compassionate...a literary boost for the spirits.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air * “A deceptively smart comic gem.” –The New York Times Book Review * “Witty and delicious...

With the death of her mother, middle-aged Theodora Goodman contemplates the desert of her life. Freed from the trammels of convention, she leaves Australia for a European tour and becomes involved with the residents of a small French hotel. But creating other people's lives, even in love and pity, can lead to madness. Her ability to reconcile joy and sorrow is an unbearable torture to her. On the journey home, Theodora finds there is little to choose between the reality of illusion and the illusion of reality. She looks for peace, even if it is beyond the borders of insanity.

Mrs Standish, ageing but still beautiful, is drawn into secret liaisons, while her daughter Eden experiments openly and impulsively with left-wing politics and love affairs. Only the son, Elyot, remains an aloof and scholarly observer –until dramatic events shock him into sudden self-knowledge.