Description
Praise for Oystercatchers: 'Fletcher has a remarkable talent with words!her approach to the world is side-on, not direct; she is attuned to the ambiguities, the spaces, the gaps left in language, the things that are not spoken; she imbues inanimate objects with a life of their own, a history and a personality and a voice. Fletcher is the woman writer par excellence: intelligent, perceptive, intuitive!British readers looking for a local equivalent to Alice Munro won't have to look much further!She is a highly talented writer and fully deserves the acclaim she has received - and the popularity that goes with it.' The Scotsman 'Oystercatchers is a stunning novel!both emotionally discomfiting and romantic; at times puzzling, it is profound, beautiful and redemptive. Oystercatchers is the work of a seriously talented young author in possession of one of the most poetic and original voices working now.' Joanna Briscoe, Guardian 'Her prose is extraordinarily lyrical: haunted, dreamlike and precise, reminiscent at times of Sylvia Plath!Fletcher's words are undeniably beautiful and her themes are profound!a haunting novel.' Sunday Times --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Susan Fletcher is the author of Eve Green , which won the Whitbread Award for First Novel, Oystercatchers , and The Highland Witch . She lives in the United Kingdom. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Publishers Weekly The plight of an accused witch in late 17th-century Britain inspires confusion, then pity, in her only visitor in Fletcher's engrossing historical (after Oystercatchers). The only witness to the massacre of the MacDonald clan, Corrag sits in a village jail under a death sentence for her supposed supernatural involvement in the killings. Her interrogator is Charles Leslie, a Catholic loyalist traveling in disguise who is seeking information that may implicate the Protestant king William in the murders. Corrag leads Charles through her lonely childhood: her mother hanged for witchcraft, Corrag fled her hometown and lived hand to mouth before gaining the protection of the MacDonald clan. Corrag spins colorful if sometimes meandering tales of the unfriendly English countryside and the fleeting joy of having found, in the clan, a place where she can be accepted; Charles is harder to pin down, and he often functions as a placeholder until his abrupt shift into a pivotal role late in the book. Fletcher gives readers a strong plot, enough vivid passages to compensate for the occasional dull spot, and a triumphant heroine in Corrag, whose travails are truly epic. (Nov.) (c) Copyright © PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Read more
Features & Highlights
- A novel from Susan Fletcher, author of the bestselling Eve Green and Oystercatchers.
- The Massacre of Glencoe happened at 5am on 13th February 1692 when thirty-eight members of the Macdonald clan were killed by soldiers who had enjoyed the clan's hospitality for the previous ten days. Many more died from exposure in the mountains.
- Fifty miles to the south Corrag is condemned for her involvement in the Massacre. She is imprisoned, accused of witchcraft and murder, and awaits her death. The era of witch-hunts is coming to an end - but Charles Leslie, an Irish propagandist and Jacobite, hears of the Massacre and, keen to publicise it, comes to the tollbooth to question her on the events of that night, and the weeks preceding it. Leslie seeks any information that will condemn the Protestant King William, rumoured to be involved in the massacre, and reinstate the Catholic James.
- Corrag agrees to talk to him so that the truth may be known about her involvement, and so that she may be less alone, in her final days. As she tells her story, Leslie questions his own beliefs and purpose - and a friendship develops between them that alters both their lives.
- In Corrag, Susan Fletcher tells us the story of an epic historic event, of the difference a single heart can make - and how deep and lasting relationships that can come from the most unlikely places.
