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Actress

Actress is the hotly anticipated new novel from Booker Prize winner and first Irish Ficiton Laureate Anne Enright, whose work has been translated into 36 languages.

Katherine O’Dell is an Irish theater legend. As her daughter Norah retraces her mother’s celebrated career and bohemian life, she delves into long-kept secrets, both her mother’s and her own.

Katherine began her career on Ireland’s bus-and-truck circuit before making it to London’s West End, Broadway, and finally Hollywood. Every moment of her life is a star turn, with young Norah standing in the wings. But the mother-daughter romance cannot survive Katherine’s past or the world’s damage. With age, alcohol, and dimming stardom, her grip on reality grows fitful and, fueled by a proud and long-simmering rage, she commits a bizarre crime.

Her mother’s protector, Norah understands the destructive love that binds an actress to her audience, but also the strength that an actress takes from her art. Once the victim of a haunting crime herself, Norah eventually becomes a writer, wife, and mother, finding her way to her own hard-won joy. Actress is finally a book about the freedom we find in our work and in the love we make and keep.

'Out in force. Anne Enright, the unofficial rock star of literary fiction, cements her stardom with Actress.' (Niamh Donnelly Irish Times)

'Actress absolutely enthralled me… [An] immersive, masterful novel.' (Anya Meyerowitz Red Magazine)

'Gripping drama and a pitch-perfect evocation of the stages of Seventies Dublin and London’s West End.' (Stephanie Cross Daily Mail, *Books to Look Our For in 2020*)

'A delicate, knotty reflection on familial relationships… brilliant.' (Dazed Digital, *Books to Look Our For in 2020*)

 

Author: Anne Enright
Agent: Peter Straus
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
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