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Start giftingActress
Narrator
Anne Enright
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Length
8 hours 4 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“In this new fiction by Man Booker Prize winner Anne Enright, a daughter delves into her past to uncover the truth behind her mother’s life as a famed actress of screen and stage. Wry, personal, darkly comedic at times, Actress simmers with insight and emotional power. Anne Enright’s performance of her own work is brilliant, not to be missed! This was my #1 favorite audiobook of 2020.”
— Noelle • Oblong Books
Bookseller recommendation
“My usual policy (with a few notable exceptions) is that an audiobook is almost always better when read by the author, who brings, if nothing else, the emotional resonance of speaking words she has written. In no case so far has that paid off as grandly as with this book and this author, a born actress herself, not for her polish but for what feels like its opposite, a swervy, drolly impulsive style of speech that keeps surprising you mid-sentence—mid-word!—with shifts in rhythm and emphasis. its a good match for her tale—a grownup daughter recalling the once-famous Irish actress who was her mother—which follows no pat arc of a life but is deliciously full of sentence-by-sentence observations and odd bits of fully lived life, mostly in 1970s Dublin. A treat.”
— Tom • Phinney Books
Bookseller recommendation
“My usual policy (with a few notable exceptions) is that an audiobook is almost always better when read by the author, who brings, if nothing else, the emotional resonance of speaking words she has written. In no case so far has that paid off as grandly as with this book and this author, a born actress herself, not for her polish but for what feels like its opposite, a swervy, drolly impulsive style of speech that keeps surprising you mid-sentence—mid-word!—with shifts in rhythm and emphasis. its a good match for her tale—a grownup daughter recalling the once-famous Irish actress who was her mother—which follows no pat arc of a life but is deliciously full of sentence-by-sentence observations and odd bits of fully lived life, mostly in 1970s Dublin. A treat.”
— Tom • Phinney Books
Bookseller recommendation
“Anne Enright is one of our most masterful writers working today. Every sentence is an absolute treat. Her jam is family secrets and the silence surrounding them (remember The Gathering?) and this story is no different. You will love Katherine ODell, the larger than life actress at the heart of the story, and her daughter, the narrator, who is devoted to her. It's a beautiful story, with such keen wisdom and thoughtfulness. *insert like 10 heart emojis*”
— Stefanie • Water Street Bookstore
Summary
A brilliant and moving novel about celebrity, sexual power, and a daughter’s search to understand her
mother’s hidden truths.
Katherine O’Dell is an Irish theater legend. As her daughter, Norah, retraces her mother’s celebrated career and
bohemian life, she delves into long-kept secrets, both her mother’s and her own. Katherine began her career on
Ireland’s bus-and-truck circuit before making it to London’s West End, Broadway, and finally Hollywood. Every
moment of her life is a performance, with young Norah standing in the wings. But the mother-daughter romance
cannot survive Katherine’s past or the world’s damage. With age, alcohol, and dimming stardom, Katherine’s grip on
reality grows fitful. Fueled by a proud and long-simmering rage, she commits a bizarre crime.
As Norah’s role gradually changes to Katherine’s protector, caregiver, and finally legacy-keeper, she revisits her
mother’s life of fiercely kept secrets; and Norah reveals in turn the secrets of her own sexual and emotional comingof-age story. Her narrative is shaped by three braided searches—for her father’s identity; for her mother’s motive in
donning a Chanel suit one morning and shooting a TV producer in the foot; and her own search for a husband, family,
and work she loves.
Bringing to life two generations of women with difficult sexual histories, both assaulted and silenced, both finding—
or failing to find—their powers of recovery, Actress touches a raw and timely nerve. With virtuosic storytelling and in
prose at turns lyrical and knife-sharp, Anne Enright takes readers to the heart of the maddening yet tender love that
binds a mother and daughter.