Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
Regular price
₱920.00
“Comyns’ novel is deranged in ways that shouldn’t be disclosed.” —Ben Marcus
This is the story of the Willoweed family and the English village in which they live. It begins mid-flood, ducks swimming in the drawing-room windows, “quacking their approval” as they sail around the room. “What about my rose beds?” demands Grandmother Willoweed. Her son shouts down her ear-trumpet that the garden is submerged, dead animals everywhere, she will be lucky to get a bunch. Then the miller drowns himself . . . then the butcher slits his throat . . . and a series of gruesome deaths plagues the villagers. The newspaper asks, “Who will be smitten by this fatal madness next?” Through it all, Comyns' unique voice weaves a text as wonderful as it is horrible, as beautiful as it is cruel. Originally published in England in 1954, this “overlooked small masterpiece” is a twisted, tragicomic gem.
REVIEWS
“Tragic, comic and completely bonkers all in one, I’d go as far as to call her something of a neglected genius.” —The Guardian
“Comyns’s own witchy way of looking at the world arises from her resourceful craft—her wordsmithery—which like a spell or a charm gives her fiction a unique flavor, and has won her a cult following.” —Marina Warner
“Comyns is one of those writers you can barely believe ever goes out of print. Her books are so funny, so exact, so twisted, you imagine their appeal would last for generations. Luckily for us, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, originally published in 1954, has been rescued by the new publishing project Dorothy.” —Jessa Crispin, PBS
“An aberrant pastoral as smart as this one could only come from someone with a biography as nutty and wonderful as Comyns’s.” —Nicole Rudick, The Paris Review Daily
“Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead keeps the reader guessing by freely switching point-of-view characters, flowing in and out of characters’ heads from paragraph to paragraph in a way that makes a small town haunted by mysterious illness feel like one infected organism. . . . Thanks to NYRB and the Dorothy Project, Comyns’ days of being underrated in America are over.” —Chicago Tribune
PRODUCT DETAILS
Paperback
Publisher:
ISBN: 978-0984469314
Pages: 216
This is the story of the Willoweed family and the English village in which they live. It begins mid-flood, ducks swimming in the drawing-room windows, “quacking their approval” as they sail around the room. “What about my rose beds?” demands Grandmother Willoweed. Her son shouts down her ear-trumpet that the garden is submerged, dead animals everywhere, she will be lucky to get a bunch. Then the miller drowns himself . . . then the butcher slits his throat . . . and a series of gruesome deaths plagues the villagers. The newspaper asks, “Who will be smitten by this fatal madness next?” Through it all, Comyns' unique voice weaves a text as wonderful as it is horrible, as beautiful as it is cruel. Originally published in England in 1954, this “overlooked small masterpiece” is a twisted, tragicomic gem.
REVIEWS
“Tragic, comic and completely bonkers all in one, I’d go as far as to call her something of a neglected genius.” —The Guardian
“Comyns’s own witchy way of looking at the world arises from her resourceful craft—her wordsmithery—which like a spell or a charm gives her fiction a unique flavor, and has won her a cult following.” —Marina Warner
“Comyns is one of those writers you can barely believe ever goes out of print. Her books are so funny, so exact, so twisted, you imagine their appeal would last for generations. Luckily for us, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, originally published in 1954, has been rescued by the new publishing project Dorothy.” —Jessa Crispin, PBS
“An aberrant pastoral as smart as this one could only come from someone with a biography as nutty and wonderful as Comyns’s.” —Nicole Rudick, The Paris Review Daily
“Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead keeps the reader guessing by freely switching point-of-view characters, flowing in and out of characters’ heads from paragraph to paragraph in a way that makes a small town haunted by mysterious illness feel like one infected organism. . . . Thanks to NYRB and the Dorothy Project, Comyns’ days of being underrated in America are over.” —Chicago Tribune
PRODUCT DETAILS
Paperback
Publisher:
ISBN: 978-0984469314
Pages: 216