Nell: A Novel
Author:
Penelope Todd
Publisher:
Cloud Ink Press
ISBN:
9781738594337
Date published:
1 May 2024
Pages:
348
Format:
Paperback
RRP:
$34.99
Nell is born to a new century, her early life forged in the freedoms of the NZ high country. Her own freedom is tested: by family expectation, by husband Herb's pride, by the rigours of family life on a Maniototo sheep station. Nell dares to step beyond the bounds; she revels and stumbles in love; encounters the perils of a woman's life, of motherhood and loss; she embraces the consolation of friendship and seeks a worldview that can hold it all. In this vivid and lyrically narrated chronicle of a life, readers will resonate with Nell's quintessentially New Zealand character- her failings, her integrity, her compassion and strength. "In writing a novel of her life, I expected gaps and guesswork, but instead found a presence and a life, vivid and corporeal, that unfolded scene by scene." Emma Neale:"... an astonishingly vivid and moving chronicle of an individual's life ... A kind of spiritual biography.
About the author:
Penelope Todd is already an award-winning author of fiction - the YA Watermark trilogy; Peri, Box and others, Island, Amigas (co-written in English and Spanish) and much-loved memoir Digging For Spain: a Writer's Journey. She has gained residencies at the Iowa International Writing Programme, Chateau de Lavigny in Switzerland, Can Serrat in Spain, Argentina and the Dunedin College of Education. She is publisher at Rosa Mira Books, and works as a freelance editor and literary assessor. In her latest novel Nell, Todd's fine writing brings her grandmother to radiant and vivid life.
