{"product_id":"9781906174057","title":"The Merrythought","description":"The Merrythought is the first novel in three decades from 1977 Whitbread prizewinner Shelagh Macdonald (\"No End to Yesterday\" - now also republished by FireCrest), writing under her current name, Shelagh Meyer.\u003cp\u003eGee, an artist, is adrift: her marriage has been a sham and a shambles for years; now, she can no longer paint. As she trails through memories in a desperate search for some sense and a centre to her existence, Gee recalls her great-grandmother, Margaret Esther - known in the family as Granny McIvor. Gee's late father always said Granny McIvor was a po-faced, puritanical, self-righteous old baggage. But her aged Aunt Mildred, still hanging cheerily onto life on her farm in New Zealand, remembers otherwise. Even more intriguing: 'There were things in Granny McIvor's background we were never told. If we asked too much we were hushed up,' she writes to Gee - whose energies suddenly now have a focus. And, as it turns out, Granny had good and startling reasons for keeping some aspects of her life very quiet indeed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs she unravels the mystery of Granny McIvor's life and character, Gee's own past and her present confusions begin to disentangle: especially the monstrous enigma that was her father, and the devastation he wrought on his family. Past and present echo and mirror one another as we follow a labyrinthine family history that bristles with cruelty, madness, and occasional hilarity, but is ultimately illuminated with its own kind of redemption.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Firecrest International Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47033115345136,"sku":"9781906174057","price":21.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781906174057_p0.jpg?v=1763617536","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781906174057","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}