Great Granny WebsterShortlisted for the Booker Prize The real-life Guinness heiress offers an inside look at the lives of eccentric aristocrats in this “masterful . . . macabre fairy-tale and blackly humorous family portrait” (Literary Hub). This macabre, mordantly funny, partly auto-biographical novel reveals the gothic craziness behind the scenes in the great houses of the aristocracy, as witnessed through the unsparing eyes of an orphaned teenage girl. Great Granny Webster herself is a fabulous monster, the chilliest of matriarchs, presiding with steely self-regard over a landscape of ruined lives. Great Granny Webster is Caroline Blackwood’s masterpiece. Heiress to the Guinness fortune, Blackwood was celebrated as a great beauty and dazzling raconteur long before she made her name as a strikingly original writer. |
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appeared asked Aunt Lavinia beautiful bedroom CAROLINE BLACKWOOD carpets central heating chair christening cold cooked Cousin Kathleen darling daughter dining-room Dr Kronin drawing-room dreaded Dunmartin Hall ELIZABETH HARDWICK everything exactly eyes face fairies father feel felt footman friends frightened gave Grandfather Dunmartin grandmother grandmother's Granny Webster grey hospital Hove imagine inherited IVY COMPTON-BURNETT J. F. POWERS J. R. ACKERLEY JOYCE CARY kiss knew L. P. HARTLEY laughing lived London looked loved Lowell Lucian Freud lunch maid managed married martin Hall McDougal sisters meals menu cards mother never night Northern Irish old lady old Mrs Webster once pheasants Poo Poo realised remember Richards Robert Lowell Rolls-Royce seemed silent sitting someone stared started stay suddenly SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER talk terror thing tiny told train tried trying Ulster wanted wearing wife woman wondered young