The Performance
- Author Claire Thomas
- Narrator Edwina Wren, Harvey Zielinski, Helen Morse, Lara Robinson, Melissa Madden Grey, Sylvie DeCrespigny, Tamala Shelton
- Publisher Orion
- Publish Date 1 March 2021
- Run Time 5 hours and 46 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Family life fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction.
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What to expect
The Times
'Innovative... an original, at-a-sitting read'
Daily Mail
'A potent meditation on the intensity of women's lives'
Charlotte Wood, author of The Weekend
'A miracle... Engaging and evocative'
Washington Post
'I loved and admired The Performance... Unmissable'
Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters
'Lively and intimate... The way Thomas plays with the reader is a sort of genius'
Guardian
'Thomas writes these women with such wisdom and compassion, that by the end we are all transformed'
Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground
Melbourne, Australia. As bushfires rage outside the city, three women watch a performance of a Beckett play.
Margot is a successful professor, preoccupied by her fraught relationship with her ailing husband. Ivy is a philanthropist with a troubled past, distracted by the snoring man beside her. Summer is a young theatre usher, anxious about the safety of her girlfriend in the fire zone.
As the performance unfolds, so does each woman's story. By the time the curtain falls, they will all have a new understanding of the world beyond the stage.
User Reviews
This was really three character studies. Telling the tale of 3 women inside a theatre as forest fires rage around them. Very descriptive and intelligent writing which I enjoyed. The ending was pretty naff though and I do think the book could have been shorter.
I see that this author has only written a couple of books and I’d like to read the other one. Not in audio format but in paperback, as I think I would appreciate the text much more.
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