Corrigan

By Caroline Blackwood

Book Overview

Corrigan is at once a mordant comedy of manners and a very modern morality play. Since her husband's death, the increasingly frail Mrs. Blunt has had only her trips to his grave to look forward to. Her raucous housekeeper's conversation, and cooking, are best forgotten. Nadine, her daughter, is an infrequent, uneasy visitor. Then one day a charming, wheelchair-bound Irishman shows up at Mrs. Blunt's door in search of charitable contributions. Corrigan is an arch manipulator, Mrs. Blunt is his mark, and before long we realize that they are made for each other. As the two grow ever more entrenched, Nadine fears for her mother's safety (or is it for her own inheritance?). With Corrigan Caroline Blackwood takes a long, hard look at our dearly beloved notions of saints and sinners, victims and villains, patrimony and present pleasure--and winks.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590170067
• ISBN13: 9781590170069
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: New York Review of Books
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Great read.

A tour-de-force of style and substance -- one of the funniest, best-written novels I've read in a long time.

Sly, witty, compassionate and surprising

Caroline Blackwood's "Corrigan" is sly, witty and surprisingly compassionate. Loved it. The perfect read for anytime you can spend some quality time with a novel. Finest kind indeed.

Pleasantly surprising (and hilarious)

A bacchanal and major home renovations ensue when a bewheelchaired stranger crunches up the gravel driveway of a wealthy widow. Corrigan, while fundraising for the handicapped in the English countryside, rolls into the heart and home of lonely Mrs. Blunt, much to the chagrin of her streetwise housekeeper and the daughter who stands to inherit her wealth.Brilliantly concise and characterized by a dry and confident wit, Corrigan is charming, hilarious, and rage-inducing all at once. Note of interest: Blackwood picked up writing as a hobby when she was in her forties and married to poet Robert Lowell.