Foreign Bodies (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780547577494)

"An absorbing achievement . . . A nimble, entertaining literary homage, but it is also, chillingly, what James would have called 'the real thing.'"--New York Times Book Review

Cynthia Ozick is a literary treasure. In her sixth novel, she retraces Henry James's The Ambassadors and delivers a brilliant, utterly new American classic.

At the center of the story is Bea Nightingale, a fiftyish divorced schoolteacher whose life has been on hold during the many years since her brief marriage. When her estranged, difficult brother asks her to travel to Europe to retrieve a nephew she barely knows, she becomes entangled in the lives of his family. Over the course of a few months she travels from New York to Paris to Hollywood, aiding and abetting her nephew and niece while waging a war of letters with her brother, and finally facing her ex-husband to shake off his lingering sneers from decades past. As she inadvertently wreaks havoc in their lives, every one of them is irrevocably changed.

"Raucous, funny, ferocious, and tragic. A literary master, as James was, Ozick makes all those qualities fit together seamlessly, and with heartbreaking effect."--Philadelphia Inquirer

"Dazzling, even masterful."--Entertainment Weekly

Author: Cynthia Ozick
ISBN-10: 0547577494
ISBN-13: 9780547577494
Publisher: Mariner Books
Language: English
Published: 11/15/2011
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.56lbs
Size: 8.01h x 5.30w x 0.65d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 12/11/2011 pg. 44