(Ebook) The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton ISBN 9780771019845, 077101984X

(Ebook) The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton ISBN 9780771019845, 077101984X

Set in the aftermath of a sex scandal at an all-girls high school, Eleanor Catton’s internationally acclaimed award-winning debut is a provocative and darkly funny novel about the elusiveness of truth, the slipperiness of identity, and the emotional compromises we make to belong."This astonishing debut novel from young New Zealander Eleanor Catton is a cause for surprise and celebration: smart, playful and self-possessed, it has the glitter and mystery of the true literary original. Though its impulses and methods can only be called experimental, the prose is so arresting, the storytelling so seductive, that wherever the book falls open it's near-impossible to put down."  -  Justine Jordan, The Guardian (UK)A high-school sex scandal jolts a group of teenage girls into a new awareness of their own potency and power. The publicity seems to turn every act into a performance and every platform into a stage. But when the local drama school decides to turn the scandal into a show, the real world and the world of the theatre are forced to meet, and soon the boundaries between private and public begin to dissolve ... "Catton’s writing is remarkably assured. The cleverness of the concept and structure - which could otherwise have risked archness - is balanced by the characters’ intensity of emotion. Part of the pleasure of reading The Rehearsal is the feeling of anticipation Catton ascribes to all theatre audiences: waiting for something to go wrong, for the illusion to be spoiled."  -  Lidija Haas, Times Literary SupplementSharply observed, brilliantly crafted, and infused with a deliciously subversive wit, The Rehearsal is at once a vibrant portrait of teenage longing and adult regret, and a shrewd exposé of how we are all performers in life. It introduces Eleanor Catton as a boldly inventive new voice in contemporary fiction.