Once the Orme family’s magnificent ancestral estate, Observatory Mansions is now a crumbling apartment complex, home to an eccentric group of misfits. One of them is Francis Orme, who earns his livelihood as a living statue. When not practicing “inner and outer stillness,” Francis steals the cherished possessions of others to add to his private museum. The other tenants are equally as odd: his mother and father, who haven’t interacted in years; a man who continually sweats and cries; a recluse who prefers television to reality; and a woman who behaves like a dog. When Anna Tapp arrives among them she stirs their souls, bringing long forgotten memories to the surface–and arousing fears that this new resident intends to provoke a metamorphosis. Reminiscent of Beckett, Ionesco, and Millhauser but startlingly original, Observatory Mansions is also unexpectedly beguiling. Upon its publication in England, it was a literary sensation, and John Fowles called it “easily the most brilliant fiction I’ve seen this year.”
About the Author
Edward Carey is a writer and illustrator born in Norfolk, England, during an April snowstorm. He has written plays for the theatre in Romania, Lithuania and London.
He is the author of OBSERVATORY MANSIONS, ALVA && IRVA, THE IREMONGER TRILOGY (HEAP HOUSE, LUNGDON and FOULSHAM), LITTLE and THE SWALLOWED MAN. He always draws the characters he writes about but getting the illustrations and writing to agree with each other takes him far too long.
He has lived in England, France, Romania, Lithuania, Germany, Denmark and the United States. He currently teaches creative writing at the University of Texas in Austin, which is not near the sea.
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