OverDrive would like to use cookies to store information on your computer to improve your user experience at our Website. One of the cookies we use is critical for certain aspects of the site to operate and has already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but this could affect certain features or services of the site. To find out more about the cookies we use and how to delete them, click here to see our Privacy Policy.
Longlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction
One of Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020
"A critique, a confession, a love letter—and another brilliant novel from Anne Enright." —Ron Charles, Washington Post
Katherine O'Dell is an Irish theater legend. Every moment of her life is a performance, with her daughter, Norah, standing in the wings. With age, alcohol, and dimming stardom, however, Katherine's grip on reality grows fitful. Fueled by a proud and long-simmering rage, she commits a bizarre crime.
As Norah's role gradually changes to Katherine's protector, caregiver, and finally legacy-keeper, she revisits her mother's life of fiercely kept secrets; and Norah confronts in turn the secrets of her own sexual and emotional coming-of-age. With virtuosic storytelling, Actress weaves together two generations of women with difficult sexual histories, touching a raw and timely nerve.
Longlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction
One of Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020
"A critique, a confession, a love letter—and another brilliant novel from Anne Enright." —Ron Charles, Washington Post
Katherine O'Dell is an Irish theater legend. Every moment of her life is a performance, with her daughter, Norah, standing in the wings. With age, alcohol, and dimming stardom, however, Katherine's grip on reality grows fitful. Fueled by a proud and long-simmering rage, she commits a bizarre crime.
As Norah's role gradually changes to Katherine's protector, caregiver, and finally legacy-keeper, she revisits her mother's life of fiercely kept secrets; and Norah confronts in turn the secrets of her own sexual and emotional coming-of-age. With virtuosic storytelling, Actress weaves together two generations of women with difficult sexual histories, touching a raw and timely nerve.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
About the Author-
Anne Enright is author of seven novels, most recently Actress. She has been awarded the Man Booker Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Book Awards. She lives in Dublin.
Reviews-
January 1, 2020 A daughter reveals the intertwined tales of her mother--a theatrical legend--and herself, a mature retrospective of sharing life with a towering but troubled figure. Katherine O'Dell, star of stage and screen, blessed with beauty, red hair, and a gorgeous voice, "the most Irish actress in the world," was not Irish at all. She was born in London, and the apostrophe in her name crept in by error via a review following one of her appearances on Broadway. However, the fact that Katherine is "a great fake" doesn't cloud the love her daughter, Norah, has for her, a bond which exists alongside the unanswered question of Norah's father's identity, "the ghost in my blood." The complexities of this mother/daughter relationship and its context in Ireland, the men it includes, and the turns both women's lives take through the decades are the meat of this tender, possessive, searching new novel from Man Booker Prize-winning Irish novelist Enright (The Green Road, 2015, etc.). Saga-esque, it traces Katherine back to her parents, strolling players from another era who invited her on stage at age 10, scarcely imagining the luminous, internationally recognized figure this "useful girl" would become. But the novel is no fairy tale. Katherine's life was marked with loneliness; disappointing, sometimes exploitative, and abusive men; the pressure of trying to remain successful; a desperate act of violence; and a breakdown. Norah narrates both her mother's life and her own--she's the author of five novels, a mother, a sexual being, and also the sole offspring of a parent she both adored and observed at a distance. Fame, sexuality, and the Irish influence suffuse the story, which ranges from glamour to tragedy, a portrait of "anguish, madness, and sorrow" haunted by a late, explanatory glimpse of horror which nevertheless concludes in a place of profound love and peace. Another triumph for Enright: a confluence of lyrical prose, immediacy, warmth, and emotional insight.
COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
February 28, 2020
Dublin-based novelist Norah O'Dell is the only child of the magnetic Irish actress Katherine O'Dell, who passed away with her reputation somewhat tarnished by scandal. An interview with a young scholar researching Katherine's career calls up memories for Norah that reveal how both women shaped each other's lives. Norah addresses her comments and conclusions sometimes to the young scholar and sometimes to her husband, and sometimes she writes to herself, which encourages Norah to consider the many and complicated dimensions of her mother's life. Her memories also lead to new discoveries about her mother, which speak to questions Norah has about her own existence, including the identity of her father. Through her explorations, Norah begins to appreciate and celebrate the fragile but enduring love of family. VERDICT Enright's sixth novel (The Gathering) presents a subtle, nuanced portrait of a complicated relationship. Norah's voice is credibly pitched to transmit yearning, resignation, and understanding in varying intensities, always amplifying her compassion for Katherine and the people pulled into her orbit.--John G. Matthews, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman
Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 30, 2020 This evocative, incisive tale from Man Booker–winner Enright (The Gathering) turns a gimlet eye on the complicated relationship between a famous mother and her only daughter. Actor Katherine O’Dell is known throughout Ireland in the 1970s and ’80s; she is also a loving—if distracted and sometimes absent—single mother to Norah, who’s often left in the care of her nanny. Norah, who narrates, recounts mainly through flashback Katherine’s star rising from humble beginnings in a traveling Irish theater troupe to her peak in Hollywood, where she increasingly struggles with alcoholism and depression. As Katherine enters her 50s, it largely falls to Norah to care for her mother, but when Katherine is committed to a mental hospital after shooting a movie producer in the foot, Norah finds professional help to care for her mother, as Norah marries, has children, and pursues her writing career. Enright portrays her characters with tenderness and grace (“It took me no time to adjust after she came home from hospital. And I don’t know what I loved, as I tended her fragile bones, but I thought I loved my mother. Because she was always the same person for me”), depicting a fraught mother-daughter relationship without cliché or condescension. Enright’s fans will love this sharp, moving work.
Mary Gordon;New York Times
Intoxicating.... Even while laughing at Enright's wicked mockery, I was moved by the tenderness of her evocation of difficult love.
Wendy Smith;Boston Globe
Gorgeously written fiction.... Enright's unflinching portrait... is scrupulously developed and painfully moving.
Sam Sacks;Wall Street Journal
There is something that seems effortless about Ms. Enright's writing?an illusion, of course, but one brilliantly sustained.
Sara Resnick;The New Yorker
Captivating.
Malcolm Forbes;National
[A] skillfully crafted, emotionally charged novel from an expert practitioner.... Enright has given us another first-rate performance.
Ruth Scurr;Spectator
A perfect jewel of a book, a dark emerald set in the Irish laureate's fictional tiara, alongside her Man Booker Prize winner The Gathering (2007) and The Green Road (2015). Its brilliance is complex and multifaceted, but completely lucid.... Actress is a deeply humane, often darkly funny novel about the exercise of power over sexually attractive women. The grim subject matter is illuminated by Enright's acute sensitivity to language.... Enright proves, once again, her genius.
Niamh Donnelly;Irish Times
Out in force. Anne Enright, the unofficial rock star of literary fiction, cements her stardom with Actress.
Lisa Allardice;Guardian
In Katherine O'Dell, her fictional fallen star of stage and screen... Enright has created a heroine as irresistible to the reader as to her audiences.... She has become a byword for contemporary Irish literary fiction at its finest.
Nigella Lawson
May I recommend Actress by Anne Enright. Her writing is always pitch perfect, but this is truly exquisite. If there is such a thing as the perfect novel, this is it.
Title Information+
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
OverDrive Read
Release date:
EPUB eBook
Release date:
Digital Rights Information+
Copyright Protection (DRM) required by the Publisher may be applied to this title to limit or prohibit printing or copying. File sharing or redistribution is prohibited. Your rights to access this material expire at the end of the lending period. Please see Important Notice about Copyrighted Materials for terms applicable to this content.
Please update to the latest version of the OverDrive app to stream videos.
Device Compatibility Notice
The OverDrive app is required for this format on your current device.
Bahrain, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen
You've reached your library's checkout limit for digital titles.
To make room for more checkouts, you may be able to return titles from your Checkouts page.
Excessive Checkout Limit Reached.
There have been too many titles checked out and returned by your account within a short period of time.
Try again in several days. If you are still not able to check out titles after 7 days, please contact Support.
You have already checked out this title. To access it, return to your Checkouts page.
This title is not available for your card type. If you think this is an error contact support.
There are no copies of this issue left to borrow. Please try to borrow this title again when a new issue is released.
| Sign In
You will be prompted to sign into your library account on the next page.
If this is your first time selecting “Send to NOOK,” you will then be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."
The first time you select “Send to NOOK,” you will be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."
You can read periodicals on any NOOK tablet or in the free NOOK reading app for iOS, Android or Windows 8.