THE POETS’ WIVES
‘Outstanding ... Thoroughly enjoyable and much deeper even than the sum of its excellent parts’
IRISH TIMES
Three women, each destined to play the role of a poet’s wife: Catherine Blake, the wife of William Blake – a poet, painter and engraver who struggles for recognition in a society that dismisses him as a madman; Nadezhda Mandelstam, wife of Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, whose work costs him his life under Stalin’s terror; and the wife of a fictional contemporary Irish poet, who looks back on her marriage during the days after her husband’s death as she seeks to fulfil his final wish. Set across continents and centuries these three women confront the contradictions between art and life, while struggling withinfidelities that involve not only the flesh, but ultimately poetry itself.
‘A marvellous triptych: lyrical, respectful of creativity but also sharply sceptical’
SUNDAY TIMES
‘Park’s tour-de-force ... The depth of character and emotion [...] are hallmarks of his work as a novelist of enormous sensitivity * * * *’
Dermot Bolger, IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAY