The Crane Wife Synopsis
The extraordinary happens everyday. One night, George Duncan is woken by a noise in his garden. Impossibly, a great white crane has tumbled to earth, shot through its wing by an arrow.
Unexpectedly moved, George helps the bird, and from the moment he watches it fly away, his life is transformed. The next day, a beautiful woman called Kumiko walks into his shop and begins to tell him the most extraordinary story. Wise, romantic, magical and funny, The Crane Wife is a celebration of the disruptive and redemptive power of love.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780857868749 |
| Publication date: |
6th February 2014 |
| Author: |
Patrick Ness |
| Publisher: |
Canongate Books Ltd |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
310 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Fiction
|
| Recommendations: |
|
Patrick Ness Press Reviews
'Delightful and heart-warming' Grazia
'The Crane Wife is a special novel: a perfect fusion of surreal imagery and beautifully crafted internal logic. Turning it over in my hands once I'd finished, I began to think of it as the literary equivalent of a Japanese puzzle box with poetry, ideas and jokes twisting and sliding out of it at surprising angles' -- Helen Brown Daily Telegraph
'The dialogue is natural and inspired, and sparkles with latent tension' Independent on Sunday
'A lovely and magical book' -- T.C. Boyle
' Patrick Ness is on top form here ... The Crane Wife is a tale full of bittersweet wonder with a very human soul. A treat.' -- Matt Haig
'This is a novel that treads with feather-deft steps through ordinary lives touched by magic, then takes flight on wing beats of powerful storytelling' -- ALI SHAW, author of The Girl with Glass Feet
'A heart-warmingly deranged new voice' Guardian
'When George and his daughter, with their seemingly ordinary quirks and heartbreaks, are befriended by an enigmatic woman, art, beauty, and myth become living forces in their lives. This poignant novel echoes with the longings and sorrows of the ages. But what came as a most delightful surprise is the humor and humanity that Patrick Ness brings to this story' -- EOWYN IVEY, author of The Snow Child
'Ness is both accessible and sophisticated, handling big subjects in prose that is simple and heart-stopping' -- Sunday Times (on the Chaos Walking trilogy)
'An insanely beautiful writer' Time Magazine
'Ness is a young writer of exciting quality and unpredictability' The Times
About Patrick Ness
Patrick Ness was born on an army base called Fort Belvoir, near Alexandria, Virginia, in the United States. His father was a drill sergeant in the US Army. He lived in Hawaii until he was almost six, spent the ten years after that in suburban Washington state, and then on to Los Angeles, where he studied English Literature at the University of Southern California.
His main job after graduating was as corporate writer at a cable company, writing manuals, form letters and speeches and once even an advertisement for the Gilroy, California Garlic Festival (this is true). If you're American and hated your cable company, he probably wrote you a letter of apology.
He got his first story published in Genre magazine in 1997 and was working on his first novel when he moved to London in 1999. He's lived here ever since. Sometimes he teaches creative writing but mostly he tries to write 1,000 words a day, 'come hell or high water'.
In May 2008, he published The Knife of Never Letting Go, his first book for young adults. It won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Booktrust Teenage Prize and he hasn't looked back since. Click here to read a Q&A with Patrick.
10 Things You Didn't Know About Patrick Ness
1. He has a tattoo of a rhinoceros.
2. He has run two marathons.
3. He is a certified scuba diver.
4. He wrote a radio comedy about vampires.
5. He has never been to New York City but...
6. He has been to Sydney, Auckland and Tokyo.
7. He got accepted into film school but turned it down to study writing.
8. He was a goth as a teenager (well, as much of a goth as you could be in Tacoma, Washington and still have to go to church every Sunday).
9. He is no longer a goth.
10. Under no circumstances will he eat onions.
Author photo © Helen Giles
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