The Beginners

The Beginners
Anne Serre, Mark Hutchinson
RRP:
NZ$ 28.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 24.64
Paperback
h185 x 117mm - 128pg
30 Jul 2021 US
International import eta 10-30 days
9780811230315
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
Anna has been living happily for twenty years with loving, sturdy, outgoing Guillaume when she suddenly (truly at first sight) falls in love with Thomas. Intelligent and handsome, but apparently scarred by a terrible early emotional wound, he reminds Anna of Jude the Obscure. Adrift and lovelorn, she tries unsuccessfully to fend off her attraction, torn between the two men. "How strange it is to leave someone you love for someone you love. You cross a footbridge that has no name, that' s not named in any poem. No, nowhere is a name given to this bridge, and that is why Anna found it so difficult to cross. "Anne Serre offers here, in her third book in English, her most direct novel to date. The Beginners is unpredictable, sensual, exhilarating, oddly moral, perverse, absurd-and unforgettable.
"Genuinely original-and, often, very quietly so. Prim and racy, seriously weird and seriously excellent, The Governesses is not a treatise but an aria, and one delivered with perfect pitch. " -- Parul Seghal - New York Times Book Review "Hypnotic, enchanting. " -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Strange, beguiling: a jewel. " -- Kirkus "[A] wry, unconventional novel about a woman' s desire. " -- The New Yorker "Her books that have been translated into English-The Governesses, The Fool and Other Moral Tales and The Beginners-have a glamour in the older sense of the word, that of witchcraft. These are books that, in their concern with the properties of fiction-plots, narrator, genre, characters-use these very elements to beguile. " -- Rhian Sasseen - The Point "The Beginners is as much a celebration of the dizzying excesses of female desire as Serre' s other work. Even in comparatively realist mode, Serre is a seductress. " -- Becca Rothfeld - Bookforum
The author of fourteen novels and short story books, Anne Serre was born in 1960. Her first novel, Les Gouvernantes, was published in 1992, and praised by Michel Crepu in La Croix for its "remarkable economy of style. " Mark Hutchinson was born in London in 1957 and lives in Paris. Among his many translations are Rene Char' s Hypnos: Notes from the French Resistance and The Inventors and Other Poems.

In stock - for items in stock we aim to dispatch the next business day. For delivery in NZ allow 2-5 business days, with rural taking a wee bit longer.

Locally sourced in NZ - stock comes from a NZ supplier with an approximate delivery of 7-15 business days.

International Imports - stock is imported into NZ, depending on air or sea shipping option from the international supplier stock can take 10-30 working days to arrive into NZ. 

Pre-order Titles - delivery will vary depending on where the title is published, if local stock is available in NZ then 5-7 business days, for international imports it can be 10-30 business days. In all cases we will access the quickest supply option.

Delivery Packaging - we ship all items in cardboard sleeves or by box with either packing paper or corn starch chips. (We avoid using plastics bubble bags)

Tracking - Orders are delivered by track and trace courier and are fully insured, tracking information will be sent by email once dispatched.

View our full Order & Delivery information