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"Picture a womanplaying a piano board at the kitchen table on a late December morning. Her hands, warmed by knuckle gloves, move across the wooden keys as she leans into the music. Pedalling a foot against the floor, her strong, supple fingers pound the opening chords of a Rachmaninov concerto. The woman imagines heavy velvet curtains drawing apart and lively notes rush on stage, leaping and skipping in a short, spirited dance that ends in a flutter of sound. The dancers depart and swaying from side to side, the woman plays slower notes and hums along, her voice mellifluous and soothing as she imagines herself beside a stream sliding through waving grass. Outside the window, the winter landscape is frozen and drab, but inside the farmhouse it is summer and music sparkles on sunlit water as the notes flow from the woman's fingertips, moving outward in ever expanding circles. Except for the fire crackling inside the wood stove and the woman's hum, no sound can be heard in the kitchen, for the painted keys of the piano board are as mute as the table beneath.
--from An Audience of Chairs
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Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 4941174-n
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780676976564
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Like beauty, madness altered perception, but instead of offering illusion, it offered delusion. Moranna leaned the tricks madness played on perception the hard way as experience showed her how persuasively madness distorted reality. Experience also showed her that if she hung on long enough, the panic would subside and the delusions would pass. There were many dawns on the ferry when the sight of the ugly smoke stacks reassured her. They were proof that once again she had won the showdown with the voice and had delivered herself to the dawn, wholly alive. (p. 286)Joan Clarks An Audience of Chairs opens with Moranna MacKenzie living alone in her ancestral Cape Breton farmhouse, waging a war with the symptoms of bipolar disorder and grieving the loss of her two daughters, taken from her over thirty years previously. There are few people remaining in her life, as Moranna cannot help but tax the patience of nearly everyone she encounters. Her long-suffering brother Murdoch has her best interests at heart, though he is fatigued by her enormous needs and pressured by his ambitious wife to invest less time in her. Pastor Andy politely sloughs off the peculiarly intelligent yet unpalatable sermons Moranna pens for him. Her neighbour Lottie knows what it is to be an eccentric and can be counted on to come through in a pinch. The local RCMP constabulary smooths over her legal scrapes. And her lover Bun, who lives with her when not working on the ferries between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, knows how to give her a wide berth on her foul weather days. Thanks to the assistance of these sometimes reluctant guardian angels, as well as to the carefully planned inheritance left by her father (not to mention her own sheer ingenuity), Moranna has managed to get by all these years despite small-town gossips and tormenting youths.Through a series of flashbacks, we learn more about the devastating effects of Morannas mental illness on her life and that of her family. But An Audience of Chairs also gives us a glimpse into the mind of a true iconoclast and wild spirit, who has managed despite overwhelming odds to keep hope alive.In her early years, Morannas accomplishments and beauty, along with the protection of a father who saw glimmers of his suicidal wife in his beloved daughter, allow her to struggle through childhood and adolescence in Sydney Mines relatively unscathed. She is a gifted pianist, a magazine covergirl, and a promising actress when she makes a brilliant marriage to an up-and-coming young journalist, Duncan. But she soon finds herself unmoored by motherhood, and the oddities that the people in her life have always chosen to overlook become more difficult to disguise with drama and wit when maternal expectations are placed upon her. Her staged life comes crashing down around her ears when she is left alone with her daughters and in a manic artistic phase risks their lives terribly. Her family can no longer explain away her eccentricities, her husband forsakes her, and she is institutionalized, her children taken from her forever.No longer playing the roles of perfect daughter, wife and mother, the devastated Moranna falteringly gropes for purpose in her life. She returns to the inherited Baddeck farmhouse and, inspired by a vision she has of her great-aunt Hettie, whose stories of their Scottish ancestors once filled the youthful Morannas imagination with stories of valour, earns a small income as a woodcarver. She carves for tourist sales the courageous and larger-than-life people of her clan, to whose histories she clings in order to reinforce her belief in her pedigree as a lionheart, so much more comforting than the spectre of madness lurking in her maternal lineage.She enthralls the audiences in her mind in reality an a Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780676976564
Book Description Softcover. Condition: new. Like beauty, madness altered perception, but instead of offering illusion, it offered delusion. Moranna leaned the tricks madness played on perception the hard way as experience showed her how persuasively madness distorted reality. Experience also showed her that if she hung on long enough, the panic would subside and the delusions would pass. There were many dawns on the ferry when the sight of the ugly smoke stacks reassured her. They were proof that once again she had won the showdown with the voice and had delivered herself to the dawn, wholly alive. (p. 286)Joan Clarks An Audience of Chairs opens with Moranna MacKenzie living alone in her ancestral Cape Breton farmhouse, waging a war with the symptoms of bipolar disorder and grieving the loss of her two daughters, taken from her over thirty years previously. There are few people remaining in her life, as Moranna cannot help but tax the patience of nearly everyone she encounters. Her long-suffering brother Murdoch has her best interests at heart, though he is fatigued by her enormous needs and pressured by his ambitious wife to invest less time in her. Pastor Andy politely sloughs off the peculiarly intelligent yet unpalatable sermons Moranna pens for him. Her neighbour Lottie knows what it is to be an eccentric and can be counted on to come through in a pinch. The local RCMP constabulary smooths over her legal scrapes. And her lover Bun, who lives with her when not working on the ferries between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, knows how to give her a wide berth on her foul weather days. Thanks to the assistance of these sometimes reluctant guardian angels, as well as to the carefully planned inheritance left by her father (not to mention her own sheer ingenuity), Moranna has managed to get by all these years despite small-town gossips and tormenting youths.Through a series of flashbacks, we learn more about the devastating effects of Morannas mental illness on her life and that of her family. But An Audience of Chairs also gives us a glimpse into the mind of a true iconoclast and wild spirit, who has managed despite overwhelming odds to keep hope alive.In her early years, Morannas accomplishments and beauty, along with the protection of a father who saw glimmers of his suicidal wife in his beloved daughter, allow her to struggle through childhood and adolescence in Sydney Mines relatively unscathed. She is a gifted pianist, a magazine covergirl, and a promising actress when she makes a brilliant marriage to an up-and-coming young journalist, Duncan. But she soon finds herself unmoored by motherhood, and the oddities that the people in her life have always chosen to overlook become more difficult to disguise with drama and wit when maternal expectations are placed upon her. Her staged life comes crashing down around her ears when she is left alone with her daughters and in a manic artistic phase risks their lives terribly. Her family can no longer explain away her eccentricities, her husband forsakes her, and she is institutionalized, her children taken from her forever.No longer playing the roles of perfect daughter, wife and mother, the devastated Moranna falteringly gropes for purpose in her life. She returns to the inherited Baddeck farmhouse and, inspired by a vision she has of her great-aunt Hettie, whose stories of their Scottish ancestors once filled the youthful Morannas imagination with stories of valour, earns a small income as a woodcarver. She carves for tourist sales the courageous and larger-than-life people of her clan, to whose histories she clings in order to reinforce her belief in her pedigree as a lionheart, so much more comforting than the spectre of madness lurking in her maternal lineage.She enthralls the audiences in her mind - in reality an audience of chairs - with daily virtuoso performances on the piano board, a silent keyboard upon which she does battle with her demons through the music of Chopin and Rachmaninov.Through these. Seller Inventory # DADAX0676976565
Book Description Condition: New. pp. 368. Seller Inventory # 261817480
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 4941174-n
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # V9780676976564
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # V9780676976564
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Like beauty, madness altered perception, but instead of offering illusion, it offered delusion. Moranna leaned the tricks madness played on perception the hard way as experience showed her how persuasively madness distorted reality. Experience also showed her that if she hung on long enough, the panic would subside and the delusions would pass. There were many dawns on the ferry when the sight of the ugly smoke stacks reassured her. They were proof that once again she had won the showdown with the voice and had delivered herself to the dawn, wholly alive. (p. 286)Joan Clarks An Audience of Chairs opens with Moranna MacKenzie living alone in her ancestral Cape Breton farmhouse, waging a war with the symptoms of bipolar disorder and grieving the loss of her two daughters, taken from her over thirty years previously. There are few people remaining in her life, as Moranna cannot help but tax the patience of nearly everyone she encounters. Her long-suffering brother Murdoch has her best interests at heart, though he is fatigued by her enormous needs and pressured by his ambitious wife to invest less time in her. Pastor Andy politely sloughs off the peculiarly intelligent yet unpalatable sermons Moranna pens for him. Her neighbour Lottie knows what it is to be an eccentric and can be counted on to come through in a pinch. The local RCMP constabulary smooths over her legal scrapes. And her lover Bun, who lives with her when not working on the ferries between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, knows how to give her a wide berth on her foul weather days. Thanks to the assistance of these sometimes reluctant guardian angels, as well as to the carefully planned inheritance left by her father (not to mention her own sheer ingenuity), Moranna has managed to get by all these years despite small-town gossips and tormenting youths.Through a series of flashbacks, we learn more about the devastating effects of Morannas mental illness on her life and that of her family. But An Audience of Chairs also gives us a glimpse into the mind of a true iconoclast and wild spirit, who has managed despite overwhelming odds to keep hope alive.In her early years, Morannas accomplishments and beauty, along with the protection of a father who saw glimmers of his suicidal wife in his beloved daughter, allow her to struggle through childhood and adolescence in Sydney Mines relatively unscathed. She is a gifted pianist, a magazine covergirl, and a promising actress when she makes a brilliant marriage to an up-and-coming young journalist, Duncan. But she soon finds herself unmoored by motherhood, and the oddities that the people in her life have always chosen to overlook become more difficult to disguise with drama and wit when maternal expectations are placed upon her. Her staged life comes crashing down around her ears when she is left alone with her daughters and in a manic artistic phase risks their lives terribly. Her family can no longer explain away her eccentricities, her husband forsakes her, and she is institutionalized, her children taken from her forever.No longer playing the roles of perfect daughter, wife and mother, the devastated Moranna falteringly gropes for purpose in her life. She returns to the inherited Baddeck farmhouse and, inspired by a vision she has of her great-aunt Hettie, whose stories of their Scottish ancestors once filled the youthful Morannas imagination with stories of valour, earns a small income as a woodcarver. She carves for tourist sales the courageous and larger-than-life people of her clan, to whose histories she clings in order to reinforce her belief in her pedigree as a lionheart, so much more comforting than the spectre of madness lurking in her maternal lineage.She enthralls the audiences in her mind in Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780676976564