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The coming bad days / Sarah Bernstein.
After leaving the man with whom she'd been living, an unnamed protagonist in an unnamed university city is working unspectacularly on the poet Paul Celan. The abiding feeling in the city is one of paranoia; the weather has been deteriorating and outside her office window she can hear police helicopters circling, looking for the women who have been disappearing. She is in self-imposed exile, hoping to find dignity in her loneliness. But when she meets Clara - a woman who is exactly her opposite - her plans begin to unravel. Reminiscent of Rachel Cusk, Gwendoline Riley and Thomas Bernhard, The Coming Bad Days is a penetrating interior portrait of feminine negation and cruelty.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781039056961 (trade paperback)
- Physical Description: 265 pages ; 21 cm
- Publisher: Toronto, ON : Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2024.
- Copyright: ©2021
Content descriptions
| General Note: | "This edition first published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Daunt Books Originals, London."--Title page verso. |
| Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Female friendship > Fiction. University towns > Fiction. Women > Fiction. |
| Genre: | Psychological fiction. Novels. |
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lakeshore Branch | FIC Berns | 31681010391621 | FICTIONPBK | Available | - |
- Random House, Inc.
The "lucid, funny and darkly alive" (Daisy Lafarge) debut novel from the Booker-shortlisted, Giller Prize-winning author of Study for Obedience.
A woman leaves the man she lives with and moves to a low stone cottage in a university town. She joins an academic department and, high up in her office on the thirteenth floor, begins a research project on the poet Paul Celan. She knows nothing of Celan, still less of her new neighbours or colleagues.
    She is in self-imposed exile, hoping to find dignity in her loneliness. Like everywhere, the abiding feeling in the city is one of paranoia. The weather is deteriorating, the ordinary lives of women are in peril, and an unexplained curfew has been imposed.
    But then she meets Clara, a woman who is her exact opposite: decisive, productive, and assured. As their friendship grows in intimacy Clara suggests another way of livingâuntil an act of violence threatens to sever everything between them.
    A penetrating portrait of feminine vulnerability and cruelty, Sarah Bernsteinâs extraordinary debut is intelligent, brutal, sure, and devastatingly funny.
