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The King of a Rainy Country book cover
The King of a Rainy Country
1990
First Published
3.95
Average Rating
276
Number of Pages
In this captivating novel the stylish Brigid Brophy portrays the impoverished bohemianism of young Londoners during the post-war years. Susan, working for a distinctly dubious bookseller is in love with the elusive Neale, but still obsessed with the memory of Cynthia, a rangy beauty from her schooldays. Their fumbling detective work reveals that Cynthia is due in Venice for a film festival and, in a richly comic odyssey, they journey there as couriers. Cynthia is found and they also meet the famous singer, Helena Buchan. The ensuing shifts of love and loyalty recall the Mozart operas for which Helena is renowned, and whose music hauntingly threads the latter part of the novel. Here is love, poverty, friendship, betrayal and enlightenment. Even a breath of tragedy serves only to underline the laconic wit and optimism of this vivid and intelligent novel.
Avg Rating
3.95
Number of Ratings
159
5 STARS
31%
4 STARS
43%
3 STARS
20%
2 STARS
3%
1 STARS
3%
goodreads

Author

Brigid Brophy
Brigid Brophy
Author · 12 books

Brigid Antonia Brophy, Lady Levey (12 June 1929, in Ealing, Middlesex, England – 7 August 1995, in Louth, Lincolnshire, England) was an English novelist, essayist, critic, biographer, and dramatist. In the Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Novelists since 1960, S. J. Newman described her as "one of the oddest, most brilliant, and most enduring of [the] 1960s symptoms." She was a feminist and pacifist who expressed controversial opinions on marriage, the Vietnam War, religious education in schools, sex (she was openly bisexual), and pornography. She was a vocal campaigner for animal rights and vegetarianism. A 1965 Sunday Times article by Brophy is credited by psychologist Richard D. Ryder with having triggered the formation of the animal rights movement in England. Because of her outspokenness, she was labeled many things, including "one of our leading literary shrews" by a Times Literary Supplement reviewer. "A lonely, ubiquitous toiler in the weekend graveyards, she has scored some direct hits on massive targets: Kingsley Amis, Henry Miller, Professor Wilson Knight." Brophy was married to art historian Sir Michael Levey. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1984, which took her life 11 years later at the age of 66.

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