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Shortly after Mary Novik's Conceit was published by Doubleday Canada in Fall 2007, it was hailed by The Globe and Mail as "a magnificent novel of 17th-century London." It was long-listed for the Giller prize and short-listed for the Ethel Wilson award (BC Book Prizes). It was chosen as a Book of the Year by both Quill & Quire and The Globe and Mail. Conceit will be published in paperback in July 2008.
In this section, you can read an excerpt from Conceit, as well as a
synopsis, a bookclub guide, a Q & A, and highlights from
reviews as they appear. On my News page, you'll find links to the full text of reviews and other articles, including Nancy Lee's interview of me for Booming Ground. You'll also find links to sound files, such as the conversation with my editor, Lara Hinchberger, and my recordings at Authors Aloud, and also links to blogs, such as the lively reviews at The Overdecorated Bookcase and BookPuddle.
To start things off, here's Jim Bartley's reason for picking Conceit as one of the top five debut novels for The Globe 100 for 2007:
"Conceit is a plenteous, fully engaging re-creation of 17th-century England, observed through the eyes of poet John Donne's daughter, Pegge. Mary Novik's imagination leaps from ecstatic to hellish, probing the carnal, the mortal and the mystical in fascinating counterpoint. The story opens with the great London fire of 1666, expands through decades, then revisits the charred ruins for an apotheosis of the macabre."
"My Top Five: A Feast of Firsts," The Globe 100, Globe and Mail
Synopsis of Mary Novik's Conceit
from the publisher, Doubleday Canada
Set against the lively backdrop of seventeenth-century
England, from the intrigue-ridden court to the teeming, bawdy
streets of London and elegant country-house gardens, this
audacious debut novel vividly portrays the lives of men and
women driven by passion.
Pegge Donne is still a rebellious girl, barely
in her teens and already too clever for a world that values
learning only in men, when her father, the famous poet John
Donne, begins arranging marriages for his five daughters—including
Pegge.
Pegge, however, is desperate to experience
the all-consuming desire that led to her parents' clandestine
marriage, notorious throughout England for shattering social
convention—and for inspiring some of the most erotic
and profound poetry ever written. She sets out to win the
love of Donne's friend, Izaak Walton—a man infatuated
with her older sister—and tries, in ways that push
the limits of daughterly behaviour, to draw the secrets of
desire out of her father during his final days. Even after
her father dies, Pegge struggles to free herself from an
obsession that threatens to drive her beyond the bounds of
reason.
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Portrait
of John Donne |
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Intertwined with Pegge's singular voice are
those of John Donne and Ann More, each telling their own
version of a love story that swept all before it. A timeless
novel, Conceit is seductive, elegant, and richly
satisfying
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