Mrs Calder and the Hyena
Published on 28. January 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
198 pages
978-1-7394212-6-7 (ISBN)
Description
Marjorie Ann Watts's previous book was described by Salley Vickers as 'shrewdly observed and wickedly funny'. The stories in this new collection, rooted in the interplay between past and present, demonstrate that age is no less immune to surprise and discovery than childhood.
Reviews / Votes
'Mrs Calder is frail and distracted. She annoys her daughter by living in disorder, taking up with vagrants, hanging around churchyards and giving free rein to her imagination (she thinks about her doctor with no clothes on). But the real hindrances to right perception in this tale, and throughout Marjorie Ann Watts's exhilarating second collection, produced at the tender age of ninety-eight, are not the fantasies by which we sustain ourselves but the suffocating illusions of others. Particularly those who want what's best for us. Where is safe? Where can we start again? Whether in homes troubled by age and bereavement or foreign cities consumed by idealistic revolution, "there are no answers", as Mrs Calder herself puts it, except to pick up these stories wherever we left off, and - gratefully - read on.' - Will EavesMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
218 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-7394212-6-7 (9781739421267)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Marjorie Ann Watts trained as a painter and illustrator with Edward Ardizzone and Harold Jones, then worked as an art editor and typographer. She worked as an illustrator (on books such as Catherine Storr's Marianne Dreams), before beginning to write and illustrate her own books for children. She has also written a novel and a guide to European painting for young people. Her father was a Punch cartoonist and graphic artist; her grandmother founded PEN International, as well as writing several volumes of poetry and twenty novels. She lives in London.