Actress
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 3 months for £0.99/mo
Actress
Buy Now for £12.99
-
Narrated by:
-
Anne Enright
-
By:
-
Anne Enright
About this listen
Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020
From the Booker-winning Irish author, a brilliant and moving novel about fame, sexual power and a daughter’s search to understand her mother’s hidden truths.
This is the story of Irish theatre legend Katherine O’Dell, as told by her daughter Norah. It tells of early stardom in Hollywood, of highs and lows on the stages of Dublin and London’s West End. Katherine’s life is a grand performance, with young Norah watching from the wings.
But this romance between mother and daughter cannot survive Katherine’s past, or the world’s damage. As Norah uncovers her mother’s secrets, she acquires a few of her own. Then, fame turns to infamy when Katherine decides to commit a bizarre crime.
Actress is about a daughter’s search for the truth: the dark secret in the bright star, and what drove Katherine finally mad.
Brilliantly capturing the glamour of post-war America and the shabbiness of 1970s Dublin, Actress is an intensely moving, disturbing novel about mothers and daughters and the men in their lives. A scintillating examination of the corrosive nature of celebrity, it is also a sad and triumphant tale of freedom from bad love, and from the avid gaze of the crowd.
©2020 Anne Enright (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
A perfect jewel of a book, a dark emerald set in the Irish laureate’s fictional tiara, alongside her Man Booker Prize winner The Gathering (2007) and The Green Road (2015). Its brilliance is complex and multifaceted, but completely lucid… Actress is a deeply humane, often darkly funny novel about the exercise of power over sexually attractive women. The grim subject matter is illuminated by Enright’s acute sensitivity to language… Enright proves, once again, her genius. (Ruth Scurr)
Remarkable resonance in every way.
Listen to this.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Actress
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
“ I was the most real thing in the room, I was right there, I had been all along. Because tucked inside her on the day she shot out into the world was the little egg of me... She told me that I was nested inside her from the day she was born, like a little Russian doll.”
Actress is the imaginary biography of Katherine O’Dell, written by her fictitious daughter, Norah. A story of an intimate and flawed mother and daughter relationship. It follows O’Dell’s rise and fall; from stardom to her grave. Norah is perfectly placed to tell this story.
Anne Enright is a keen observer and writes with a sharp eye and subtle evocation of her characters’ emotional rollercoaster. It is a finely crafted piece of literary fiction. Exploring themes of sexuality, #metoo, mental health, Ireland’s tumultuous history and the stage; this is a superbly crafted book. * may contain triggers*
Anne Enright narrates the audiobook herself, something I always love. To hear the book and it’s nuances exactly as the writer intended is a wonderful thing. Her Irish accent adds to the depth of the experience.
This wasn’t a book I was expecting or anticipating this month but something drew me to begin the audiobook...I’m so glad I did.
A beautifully crafted novel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It look me a little while to get used to her reading voice but I warmed to it very much. There were times though in the earlier part when I found it hard to make out certain words in the lower register and needed to adjust volume a bit.
standing ovation
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Like being back home
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.