Description
Book SynopsisThe Crocodile by the Door by Selina Guinness - shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award - is a remarkable, compelling and moving memoir of a farm, a family and a home.
When Selina Guinness and her partner Colin, both young academics, moved in with Selina''s uncle Charles, an elderly bachelor, they had no idea what the coming years held for them: a crash course in farming, tense discussions with helicopter-borne property developers, human tragedy, and the challenge of dragging a quasi-feudal estate at the edge of Dublin into the twenty-first century.
The Crocodile by the Door - a dazzling debut memoir that will appeal to fans of Edmund de Waal, William Fiennes and Richard Benson''s The Farm - tells this remarkable story.
''Something close to a small masterpiece ... enchanting and hopeful'' Miranda Seymour, Daily Telegraph (five stars)
''A surprisingly entertaining primer on the travails of farming today,from ungovernabl
Trade Review
Something close to a small masterpiece ... enchanting and hopeful -- Miranda Seymour * Daily Telegraph *
A surprisingly entertaining primer on the travails of farming today, from ungovernable sheep to unfathomable bureaucracy; a fascinating glimpse of what had become of the Anglo-Irish by the late 20th centuryand into the 21st; an elegant modern pastoral and, at the same time, an astute dismantling of that genre; and a meditation on the meaning of labour, and on how hard work shapes identity as well as achievement.... A remarkable book -- Belinda McKeon * Guardian *
Guinness is an astute observer and stylish chronicler of landscape, architecture and human character. ... she describes her domestic setbacks and achievements with engaging candour. * Irish Times *
A very fine writer with a lovely turn of phrase ... Stories need adversity and the overcoming of obstacles and The Crocodile by the Door has plenty
* Spectator *
A memoir so exceptional that it deserves to be ranked as the Irish Book of the Year * Irish Independent *
Beautifully wrought ... The book is rich in beautiful imagery ... This is the story of bringing a landscape to life, and it is glorious
* Evening Herald *
Astutely chronicling the wider story of Ireland's downfall through the prism of the farming life, Guinness's book is the unexpected hit of the year
* Sunday Business Post *
