By the time I'd finished this I was feeling so depressed I headed off into the kitchen to hide all the sharp implements and cracked open another bottle of wine. When Ellen’s husband takes their seven-year-old young son — whom they share custody for — on a camping trip to Wales, Ellen is free to enjoy her own summer break from her job as a theatre critic.

There she hopes for some true sexual excitement, but winds up having encounters with two of the hotel employees, who are pushy, clumsy, and ultimately disgusting.In this novel, squashed strawberries “leak blood” and flowers have “no smell” - there is a dystopian conjoining of artificiality, decadence, diseased bodily effluvia, and consumerism (of women’s bodies as well as goods) despite the glamorous continental setting and the wealth on display. Embora a escrita seja muito mais simples e linear, a sua capacidade de surpreender e de tocar aspectos brutais da vida de uma forma crua e ao mesmo tempo tão verdadeira que nos arrebata, está cá. She tells her new acquaintances that she’s English to avoid uncomfortable conversations about religion and Catholicism.

By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. The dialogue is awful, character development is non-existent, and there is not one worthy sex scene in the book. She has also received, among other honors, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the Ulysses Medal from University College Dublin, and a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Literary Academy. Along with the characters she meets, Ellen throws themselves into a hedonistic situation where nobody appears at all happy and are only able to show any sense of enthusiasm for the trappings of wealth and a series of sexual encounters in which none appears to invest any emotion. O'Brien just kept throwing test after test at poor ineffectual Ellen, who by the book's end is finally starting to take her life in hand and be adult enough to handle large hotel bills, physical ills, grief, and getting rid of men who really mean nothing to her.This novel might be made into an independent movie, but it could never be a mainstream Hollywood film with Julia Roberts. Banned in several countries on first publication, Edna O’Brien’s August is a Wicked Month is a shimmering, sensual tale of a woman rediscovering herself – and it feels just as glorious, radical, and escapist as today. Broke and shocked, Ellen makes her way back home only to discover that the actor she wanted so badly may have given her an STD. From Nobel Laureates Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter to theatre greats Tom Stoppard and Alan Bennett to rising stars Polly Stenham and Florian Zeller, Faber Drama presents the very best theatre has to offer. But because I think the rest of the book is so exquisitely rendered, it really didn't diminish my enjoyment of the writing for long.

However, she soon discovers that independence blurs into loneliness, especially when she receives some heart-breaking news . After a number of false starts with hotel staff, Ellen falls in with a louche crowd of hangers-on surrounding an American film star.Bored London house wife Ellen, 28 years old, has divorced her husband and lives in London with her eight-year-old son. Steve E Clark is a New York Times Best Selling Author of Justice Is for the Lonely and Justice Is for the Deserving. After being brought as low as possible, Ellen does find her way back to herself and living her life.