Imprint: Penguin
Published: 01/02/2018
ISBN: 9780241983416
Length: 320 Pages
Dimensions: 198mm x 19mm x 129mm
Weight: 223g
RRP: £8.99
'This funny, grumpy, coming-of-age tale still strikes a chord' The Times
Peter Levi, a shy and sensitive American teenager, moves to Paris to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War, where he is determined to live a life in harmony with his own idealistic views. But the world is changing at breakneck pace, with nuclear war looming abroad and racial tensions simmering at home. Before long, Peter's naïve illusions are shattered, as he finds himself an unwilling participant in an era of extraordinary change.
Birds of America is an unforgettable and deeply moving story of personal and political turmoil; of the strange and surprising nature of growing up; and of the questions we face when we examine who we really are.
'A writer known for her wit, her glamour, and the shocking candour of her fiction' New Yorker
'An absorbing novel about a young man's voyage into adulthood, enlivened by Mary McCarthy's needling wit' Hilary Mantel, Booker prize-winning author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies
'Fiercely intelligent, insatiably combative, McCarthy's novels invite controversy' Penelope Lively, from the introduction
Imprint: Penguin
Published: 01/02/2018
ISBN: 9780241983416
Length: 320 Pages
Dimensions: 198mm x 19mm x 129mm
Weight: 223g
RRP: £8.99
An absorbing novel about a young man's voyage into adulthood, enlivened by Mary McCarthy's needling wit. You have to go away to understand home, you have to lose yourself to find yourself; Mary McCarthy's insight into her young hero - his awkward growing-up, his efforts to understand his time and place - create an authentic and thoughtful slice of cultural history.
This funny, grumpy, coming-of-age tale still strikes a chord. . . There is much in McCarthy's novel, published by Penguin in a new edition to mark the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, that makes you say: "Yes! Exactly! Spot on."
Fiercely intelligent, insatiably combative, McCarthy's novels invite controversy
One of America's leading women of letters, a writer with a reputation for acerbic insights and penetrating prose
A writer known for her immaculate prose, her wit, her glamour, her sexual adventures... and the shocking candor of her fiction
Birds of America brings to mind the teenage angst of Catcher in the Rye, but with a political conscience. Full of hilarious and extremely honest one-liners
There was something so crisp and clever and bold about her writing
McCarthy earned recognition for her cool, analytic intelligence and her exacting literary voice - a voice capable of moving from the frivolously feminine to the willfully cerebral, from girlish insouciance to bare-knuckled fury
An endlessly fascinating novel
A profoundly thoughtful and moving book