298 pages
English language
Published April 12, 2004 by W.F. Howes.
298 pages
English language
Published April 12, 2004 by W.F. Howes.
Elizabeth Costello is a distinguished and aging Australian novelist whose life is revealed through a series of eight formal addresses. From an award-acceptance speech at a New England liberal arts college to a lecture on evil in Amsterdam and a sexually charged reading by the poet Robert Duncan, the author draws the reader toward its astonishing conclusion. The novel is, on its surface, the story of a woman's life as mother, sister, lover, and writer. Yet it is also a profound and haunting meditation on the nature of storytelling.