The Nightingales of Troy Paperback by Alice Fulton

Product Details

• Publisher: WW Norton (2009-06-23)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 256 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780393335446
• Item Weight: 215.46 grams
• Dimensions: 20.9 x 13.89 x 1.57 cm

“Outstanding....Alice Fulton reveals herself to be triumphantly at home in the short story.”—Boston Sunday Globe

In 1908, Mamie Garrahan faces childbirth aided by her arsenic-eating sister-in-law Kitty, a nun who grows opium poppies, and a doctor who prescribes Bayer Heroin. "In the twentieth century, I believe there are no saints left," Mamie remarks. But her daughters and granddaughter test this notion with far-reaching consequences. Kitty's arsenic reappears sixty years later in the hands of her distraught niece. A schoolgirl's passion for the Beatles and Melville—a passion both lonely and funny—shapes her life. Each decade is illuminated by endearingly eccentric characters: an anorexic waitress falls for a wealthy college boy in the jazz age...an exuberant young nurse questions science during the Depression...a homely seamstress designs a scandalous dress in the 1950s. The Nightingales of Troy, the first fiction collection by an acclaimed American poet, creates a vividly palpable sense of time and place. Alice Fulton's memorable characters confront the deepest dilemmas with bravery and abiding love.

About the Author

Alice Fulton is the author of ten books. Her honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. She lives in central New York.