Mrs Engels - Brossura

'A terrific, startling read: compelling cast, involving story, historically transporting. Gavin McCrea has found an original and atmospheric way of giving resonant voice to the unsung Lizzie Burns. Beguiling, humorous, terrifyingly candid, clandestine agent in a world of hazardous political intrigue and the equally risky complexities of desire and love, McCrea's Lizzie Burns is an enthralling character who pulls us irresistibly into her fascinating world from her first words to her last.' -- Rachel Holmes 'Lizzie Burns' voice is pitch perfect. She is a magnificent creation, worthy of comparison to Joyce's Molly Bloom or Beckett's Winnie - her voice spills beyond the pages of the book, endless, vital, witty and enduring.' -- Rebecca Stott, author of Ghostwalk 'Gavin McCrea's witty, fictional interpretation of the women who loved Engels crackles and fizzes with life. Lizzie Burns and her sister Mary are the dark heart of a book which manages to reconfigure a key period in British history while also showing us the flawed, human side of a great thinker. Lizzie's narration is wonderfully yet lightly stylised, and this is an excellent debut.' -- Francesca Rhydderch 'An unusual, wholly convincing voice.' -- Joyce Carol Oates 'Gavin McCrea has in his debut novel, Mrs Engels, done something I admire - he has found a character from a pivotal point in history whom I hadn't thought much about before, and with wit and humor and force settled her into my mind to stay.' -- Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone 'This whirlwind of politics and personalities might become dizzying were it not stabilised by Lizzie's unmistakable voice. She begins life by grabbing what she needs in order to survive; she ends it having achieved deep self-knowledge. She tells her own story with a fierce wit and trenchancy, shot through with poetry ... McCrea's fictional speculation makes a fine symphony out of the silence that surrounds Lizzie Burns.' -- Helen Dunmore The Guardian 'An assured, beautifully written debut, about a woman wiser than her lover perhaps, and slowly growing into herself - reminiscent of Molly Bloom in Ulysses. Eleanor Marx wrote that Lizzie was 'illiterate and could not read or write, but she was true, honest and in some ways as fine-souled a woman as you could meet'. Going by this, McCrea describes her perfectly.' -- Mario Reading The Spectator 'Ambitious and imaginative ... McCrea breathes real life into a historical character of whom we know next to nothing. -- Nigel Jones Daily Mail 'In Mrs Engels, Lizzie Burns, an Irish-woman from Manchester, narrates the story in her own, deliberately non-modern idiom ... Lizzie provides an irreverent working-class take on all the intellectual posturing going on ... Gavin McCrea is triumphant in his exuberant debut in creating Lizzie's voice; she is dazzlingly convincing. Voices that feel authentic to their period and yet brim with life and verve are so rare that Mrs Engels is my book of the month.' -- Antonia Senior The Times '[Lizzie Burns's] plain, provocative, wittily realistic voice rings truthfully throughout this novel of ideas and ideals. She gives heartfelt, humanising context to the revolutionary politics and principles of Marx, Engels and their conflicted struggles to live morally virtuous lives in late Victorian England. Fiercely but tenderly fighting for heart over mind, Lizzie is one of the most distinctive female characters of modern fiction.' -- --Iain Finlayson Saga

'Lizzie Burns is fierce, proud and poetic - lit with a determination to make the best of things, bad as they are, and enjoy herself while doing it.' --Psychologies

Gavin McCrea was born in Dublin in 1978 and has since travelled widely, living in Japan, Italy, and Spain, among other places. He holds a BA and an MA from University College Dublin, and an MA and a PhD from the University of East Anglia. He currently divides his time between the UK and Spain.