Monday, December 21, 2020

AUGUST IS A WICKED MONTH


 August Is A Wicked Month, Edna O'Brien, Simon and Schuster, 1965, 220 pp

This review is a complete spoiler, so if you have not read the book and plan to, you might want to read it first. If you don't plan to, you can read this as a plot summary. 

I love Edna O'Brien so much. I just get her and I feel she gets me. She turned 90 on December 15, 2020. Just the other day.

This was her next novel after The Country Girls Trilogy. Ellen, formerly of Ireland, lives in London and is divorced. She and her ex share a son who is eight years old. He mostly lives with Ellen but has weekends with his dad. Oh how I remember those times with my boys and my ex. That did not turn out well for us but things went worse for Ellen. 

When the dad takes the boy for a week long summer camping trip, Ellen decides to go on holiday herself. A fling to assuage her sorrows and to celebrate her freedom. Wild parties on the Riviera with wild people.

Then disaster. She gets the news that her son was killed by a truck on the side of a road. She stays on the Riviera for a few more weeks. It is August. She enters into an orgy of sex, eating, drinking and swimming with a mysterious guy. That all ends when he disappears and she develops what she fears may be gonorrhea. Worst nightmare scenario.

She finally goes home and works it all out, lets go of loss and failure and resolves to move on. I remember resolving the same. 

14 comments:

  1. Resolves to move on.......I guess most of us have done that at one time or another, and for different reasons no doubt.

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    1. It always, though sometimes eventually, seems the best decision.

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  2. What a cool cover. Yes I saw that the author had a bday last week ... and plans to write one more book! How amazing. Hope she goes forever. I'd like to read these older books of hers sometime.

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    1. She was so way ahead of her time. I'd like her to go forever too, though she has contributed enough to earn the right to stop at any time. Her early books are great!

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  3. This sounds like an interesting read!! I will have to read something by Edna O'Brien in the future as I've read nothing by her that I know of anyway.

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    1. Lucky for you, she has a nice long list from which to choose!

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  4. I don't like the month of August so I can agree with the title! Sounds like an interesting read for sure!

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    1. August is my birthday month so it has some meaning to me. I know my mom did not like being pregnant in the summer though!

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  5. It is an intriguing title, but as an August baby, like you, I admit I do have a soft spot for what is usually one of the most unpleasant months of the year here. In fact in 2020, they've all been wicked months.

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  6. You did it again! If I ever have the proud temptation to think I'm well read, I just need to visit your blog and find an author I had never read nor even read about, lol. Which one of her books is your favorite?

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    1. Lol. I could say the same about your blog! If you want a taste of what you will find in all of her books, start with her Country Girls trilogy. Everything that comes after that expands on her concerns.

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  7. Sounds pretty depressing. I can relate to every other weekends off for me when my kids were young (5 and 7) through teen years - well not so much e/o/weekend as teens.

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    1. It was a bit depressing but a lot of us can relate to handing the kids back and forth.

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