Anne Enright discusses her latest book, Actress, exploring the heroes of childhood, celebrity, and its potential for destruction.
Welcome to One Page: Canada's Virtual Literary Series! Stay tuned for content throughout the fall, featuring international writers talking directly to Canadian audiences.
Today, Anne Enright talks about Actress with the editor of Canadian Notes & Queries, Emily Donaldson.
In Anne Enright’s seventh novel, Actress, the Irish writer explores the creation and destruction of celebrity in the character of Katherine O’Dell as told through the eyes of her daughter, Norah. Along the way, Enright traces the tragic legacy that Katherine’s celebrity leaves when she dies young and the unique world that Norah grows up in with a mother whose pain ultimately pushes her into madness.
It’s one part A Star is Born with the portrayal of fame on an individual life trajectory and the rise and fall; and it’s one part Joy Luck Club with its complex and contradictory view of the bonds between mothers and daughters.
