A Spell of Winter

Catherine and her brother Rob do not understand why they have been abandoned by both their parents, or know where their mother has gone. They are brought up by servants in the house of their grandfather, an Irishman who made his fortune somehow and is known in the neighbourhood as ‘the man from nowhere’. The children cling to each other because they have no-one else, but when they grow up their sibling love becomes incestuous. As the world outside moves towards war, Catherine and Rob are trapped in their own conflict. But little by little, the spell of winter that has held Catherine begins to break, and she starts to free herself from the weight of the past.

A Spell of Winter is set during the early years of the twentieth century, during the period before, during and immediately after the First World War.

Winner of the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction

Utdrag ur boken:
When my mother left I saw Father cry. It was because a dress she had had altered came back to the house in a long flat brown-paper parcel, addressed to her. He tore it open and the grey folds of the dress blew around his face like cobwebs. It was an evening chiffon which we called her ghost dress. He scrubbed the fabric against his face, snuffing up the smell of it, which was the smell of her body. I watched him and knew exactly what he was smelling, because whenever I went past her bedroom door I tried the handle. Usually it was locked but sometimes I got in. It was just as if she was coming back any minute. I climbed into her wardrobe and rubbed my face against her skirts: the slither of satin, rasping wool, fine cotton lawn. All round me there was the smell of her body, bringing me home.

Medelbetyg: 5 (1 röster)