Etta and Otto and Russell and James

Etta and Otto and Russell and James

Summary

'Genuinely moving' Guardian
'Delightful' Mail on Sunday
'Charming, fresh, touching . . . cuts through to the heart' Sunday Times

'Tell me about home, please. Tell me about the weather. About the heat or dust or still-ness. Anything. And tell me about you. I keep your photo on the side without the gun. For balance.'

This is a love story that spans fifty years, three lives, two continents and an ocean. It tells of school teacher Etta, who settles in the Canadian prairies during the Great Depression and of the two pupils who fall in love with her: Russell, a city boy who takes to farming despite his twisted leg, and Otto, who struggles in school but always tries hard - even when he's sent to fight a war in a distant land. It is a story of love and joy, pain and passion, memory and forgetting - and one incredible journey. It is the story of Etta and Otto and Russell and James.

Reviews

  • Writing that easily equals that of the Booker-winning Richard Flanagan...[and] as readable and gripping as any thriller. Only the thrills offered by this bright new star of literature are metaphysical and unexpected and will leave you thinking on a new level about the connections between men, women and places.
    The Times

About the author

Emma Hooper

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