(Ebook) Bleaker House: Chasing My Novel to the End of the World by Nell Stevens ISBN 9780385541558, 9780385541565, 0385541554, 0385541562

(Ebook) Bleaker House: Chasing My Novel to the End of the World by Nell Stevens ISBN 9780385541558, 9780385541565, 0385541554, 0385541562

Twenty-seven-year-old Nell Stevens was determined to write a novel, but somehow life kept getting in the way. Then came a game-changing opportunity: she won a fellowship that let her spend three months, all expenses paid, anywhere in the world to research & write a book. Would she choose a glittering metropolis, a romantic village, an exotic paradise? Um, no. Nell chose Bleaker Island, a snowy, windswept pile of rock in the Falklands. There, in a guesthouse where she would be the only guest, she could finally rid herself of distractions & write her 2,500 words a day. In 3 months, surely she'd have a novel. And sure enough, other than sheep, penguins, paranoia, & the weather, there aren't many distractions on Bleaker. 

Nell gets to work on her novel--a delightful Dickensian fiction she calls Bleaker House--only to discover that an excruciatingly erratic internet connection & 1100 calories a day (as much food as she could carry in her suitcase, budgeted to the raisin) are far from ideal conditions for literary production. With deft humor, the memoir traces Nell's island days & slowly reveals details of the life & people she has left behind in pursuit of her art. They pop up in her novel, as well, & in other fictional pieces that dot the book. It seems that there is nowhere Nell can run--an island or the pages of her notebook--to escape herself. With winning honesty & wit, Nell's race to finish her book slowly emerges as an irresistible narrative in its own right.

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“An honest portrait of writerly neurosis.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“One of the most original, entertaining, & thought-provoking books I have ever read about the difficulty of writing a book.” —Rebecca Mead, NewYorker.com