Présentation de l'éditeur Idioglossia: A secret language between a few people, a private language; a lalallation; the babble of babies or the murmur of lunatics. Bolshy, demanding, eccentric, Great Edie is a Jewish immigrant whose aspirations have always been dampened by reality and whose talents she obscures behind a bristling exterior. Her daughter Grace has been incarcerated in an asylum for most of her adult life following a tragedy from which she never recovers. As a result, Maggie, her only child, is brought up by an alcoholic father on board a cruise liner where, like him, she earns her keep as an entertainer of sorts. Her own daughter, Sarah, is truly dispossessed and, through promiscuous sex, seeks the affection denied to her as a child. Though disparate, their lives have a curious symmetry: four generations of women who have all been touched by a legacy of madness which they must, in one way or another, confront if they are to achieve fulfilment. Idioglossia is a rich and rewarding novel written with a sparklingly original voice and is destined to establish Eleanor Bailey as one of the most exciting writers of her generation. Revue de presse "'Hugely entertaining...a clever dramatic read'" (Margaret Forster)"'Eleanor Bailey's exuberant novel plays with the fate of characters struggling with the tensiobn between inner and outer reality...Funny and sad and full of human sympathy'" (Jill Paton Walsh) Quatrième de couverture For four generations of women from the same family, madness is a potent legacy. It influences their lives. It tempts, it persuades and it destroys. But it can also bring a strange kind of freedom... Aggressive, demanding, eccentric, Great Edie curses the psychological weakness that runs through the family like a fault. No one would suspect that her psychic powers, obscured by fury and geriatric whiskers, were anything more than a business, security for her old age. Her daughter, Grace, lives in a world of mirrors. She has languished in a mental institution for long spells of her adult life, after a tragedy years ago. Consequently Grace's only child, Maggie, grew up working with her father on a fading cruise liner. But the golden age of ocean travel is over, and a relationship with the mysterious comedian, Rudi, leaves her pregnant and alone. Now Maggie's daughter, Sarah, is truly dispossessed and, through gratuitous sex, seeks on her loveless childhood. She rejects the world of overused cliches and overpriced coffee but can see no alternative - except to let go... Biographie de l'auteur Eleanor Bailey is a writer and journalist. She lives in Japan. She has recently been selected as one of twenty-one women writers in the Orange Futures promotion, highlighting the writers to watch in the twenty-first century. Her novels Idioglossia and Marlene Dietrich Lived Here are both published by Black Swan.
