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Edith Holler
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
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Edith Holler
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Publisher's Summary
The year is 1901. England’s beloved queen has died, and her aging son has finally taken the throne. In the eastern city of Norwich, bright and inquisitive young Edith Holler spends her days among the boisterous denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave its confines. Fascinated by tales of the city she knows only from afar, she decides to write a play of her own: a stage adaptation of the legend of Mawther Meg, a monstrous figure said to have used the blood of countless children to make the local delicacy known as Beetle Spread. But when her father suddenly announces his engagement to a peculiar, imposing woman named Margaret Unthank, heir to the actual Beetle Spread fortune, Edith scrambles to protect her father, the theatre, and her play—the one thing that’s truly hers—from the newcomer’s sinister designs.
Teeming with unforgettable characters, Edith Holler is a surprisingly modern fable of one young woman’s struggle to escape her family’s control—and to reveal inconvenient truths about the way children are used.
What the critics say
"Jayne Entwistle's solid delivery adds depth to this quirky tale of a girl who is trapped in her family's tumbledown theater.... Entwistle's vivid performance adds comic malevolence to this entertaining, would-be gothic horror." (AudioFile)
“A fabulous novel. . . . The voice of Edith Holler is distinctive and brilliant. . . . Edward Carey is a brilliant writer.” —Bill Goldstein, NBC New York
“Draws on fairy tales and Shakespeare for a dazzling bildungsroman. . . . [and] unquestionably succeeds. This affirms [Edward Carey’s] standing as a major literary talent.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)
“In ways both witty and dark, the novel brilliantly probes the distinction between drama and real life, audience and performer, actor and character. And the whimsical illustrations, all drawn by Carey himself, are the perfect accompaniment to a story about an art form as visual as it is verbal. A wonderfully strange and quirky tale about the power of penning and performing tales.” —Kirkus