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Eleanor Brown has lived in many places, including San Francisco, Philadelphia, England, and South Florida. She has had many jobs, including wedding coordinator, freelance writer, executive assistant and teacher. The Weird Sisters is her first novel.
Author photo © Joe Henson
Two parallel stories, set in two time frames, where second chances and the links between two women flicker and burn with energy. In Chicago during 1999, Madeleine tells her own story as she flounders in a loveless marriage, she finds a journal and as she reads, describes her Grandmother’s story, which begins in 1919. As Madeleine discovers her grandmother, can she also re-discover herself? Eleanor Brown has a wonderful eye for detail, the descriptive detailing encouraged smells, sights and sounds to travel from the page into my consciousness. The two stories, full of life and emotion, twist and merge together into a beautiful relationship tale, yet for me, it was the subtle bitter sweet notes of reality that really added substance to this novel. ‘The Light of Paris’ traverses time and continents, in a captivating and gorgeously told, hope filled tale, it really is very lovely indeed.
Two parallel stories, set in two time frames, where second chances and the links between two women flicker and burn with energy. In Chicago during 1999, Madeleine tells her own story as she flounders in a loveless marriage, she finds a journal and as she reads, describes her Grandmother’s story, which begins in 1919. As Madeleine discovers her grandmother, can she also re-discover herself? Eleanor Brown has a wonderful eye for detail, the descriptive detailing encouraged smells, sights and sounds to travel from the page into my consciousness. The two stories, full of life and emotion, twist and merge together into a beautiful relationship tale, yet for me, it was the subtle bitter sweet notes of reality that really added substance to this novel. ‘The Light of Paris’ traverses time and continents, in a captivating and gorgeously told, hope filled tale, it really is very lovely indeed.
April 2012 Debut of the Month. A trenchantly observant novel about the often warring emotions between sisters that threaten to pull apart but sometimes even draw together familial ties. It's at once hilarious, thought-provoking and poignant, this sparkling and devourable debut explores the roles that we play with our siblings, whether we want to or not.
August 2011 Debut of the Month. 'See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much.' THE WEIRD SISTERS is a trenchantly observant novel about the often warring emotions between sisters that threaten to pull apart but sometimes even draw together familial ties. It's at once hilarious, thought-provoking and poignant, this sparkling and devourable debut explores the roles that we play with our siblings, whether we want to or not.
Eleanor Brown's first collection, Maiden Speech, published by Bloodaxe in 1996, included her much anthologised girlfriend's revenge poem 'Bitcherel' along with a widely praised sequence of fifty love and end-of-love sonnets written during her 20s. Her second collection, White Ink Stains, appearing three decades later, draws on the lives of women of all ages. Taking her title from the idea that when a woman writes about her experience as a woman, 'she writes in white ink' (Helene Cixous), Eleanor Brown wanted to inscribe, among other things, the unseen labour of endowing infants with their mother tongue, their birthright of speech and language skills - the babbling, cooing, phonic repetition, echolalia, chanting of nonsense-words, singing of lullabies, nursery rhymes, counting rhymes, clapping songs, and telling of bedtime stories that is often the invisible and unrecorded work of women with pre-school-age children. A number of these poems were written in response to interviews made for the Reading Sheffield oral history project. Eleanor Brown spent over a year listening to recordings before starting to write these poems, some of which stay very faithful to the speaker's own words, while others travel further into an imaginative or active, poetic listening; these are the poems she heard not in what was said, but in pauses, intonations, emphasis, whispers, asides, digressions and deflections.
';I adoredThe Light of Paris. It's so lovely and big-heartedit made me long for Paris.'Jojo Moyes,New York Times-bestselling author ofMe Before You and After YouThe miraculous novel from theNew York Timesbestselling author ofThe Weird Sistersa sensation beloved by critics and readers alike. Madeleine is trappedby her family's expectations, by her controlling husband, and by her own fearsin an unhappy marriage and a life she never wanted. From the outside, it looks like she has everything, but on the inside, she fears she has nothing that matters. In Madeleine's memories, her grandmother Margie is the kind of woman she should have beenelegant, reserved, perfect. But when Madeleine finds a diary detailing Margie's bold, romantic trip to Jazz Age Paris, she meets the grandmother she never knew: a dreamer who defied her strict, staid family and spent an exhilarating summer writing in cafes, living on her own, and falling for a charismatic artist. Despite her unhappiness, when Madeleine's marriage is threatened, she panics, escaping to her hometown and staying with her critical, disapproving mother. In that unlikely place, shaken by the revelation of a long-hidden family secret and inspired by her grandmother's bravery, Madeleine creates her own Parisian summerreconnecting to her love of painting, cultivating a vibrant circle of creative friends, and finding a kindred spirit in a down-to-earth chef who reminds her to feed both her body and her heart. Margie and Madeleine's stories intertwine to explore the joys and risks of living life on our own terms, of defying the rules that hold us back from our dreams, and of becoming the people we are meant to be.
';Bright, literate . . . a punchy delight.'Publishers Weekly (starred review)Unlucky in work, love, and life, the Andreas sisters return to their childhood home. Each has a secret she's unwilling to shareeach has come home to lick her own wounds. The Andreas family is an eccentric one. Books are their passion. Their fathera renowned professor of Shakespearenamed all three girls for great Shakespearean womenRose (Rosalind), Bean (Bianca), and Cordy (Cordelia); as a result, the sisters find that they have a lot to live up to.With this burden, the Andreas sisters have a difficult time communicating with their parents and their lovers, but especially with one another. What can the homebody and shy eldest sister, the fast-living and mysterious middle child, and the bohemian youngest sibling have in common? Why can't Rose leave her hometown for the man she loves? Why has glamorous Bean come home from New York City? And why has Cordy suddenly resurfaced after years of gypsy living? Each sister has found her life nothing like she had thought it would beand now, as they are faced with their parents' frailty and their own disappointments and setbacks, their usual quick salve of a book can't solve what ails them.
Maiden Speech was the debut collection by Eleanor Brown, a witty poet who writes powerfully of love, and hilariously of love's pitfalls, most notably in her much anthologised girlfriend's revenge poem, 'Bitcherel'. Shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.
