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Description
"Kennedy is not only a romantic but an anarchist." —Anita Brookner
Summer, 1947. A bizarre catastrophe rocks a seaside village in Cornwall when a cliff tumbles down on the Pendizack Manor Hotel. The hotel is obliterated, and seven guests are killed in the disaster. Everyone else makes a narrow escape. As the survivors tell their stories, the events of the previous week are revealed, and a parade of sins exposed. Gluttony, Lecherousness, Sloth, Pride, Covetousness, Envy and Wrath: all are in residence at Pendizack Manor, and as the day of the disaster creeps closer, it becomes clear that who’s spared and who’s lost might not be as arbitrary as first assumed.
A modern upstairs-downstairs comedy with an old-fashioned morality play tucked away inside, The Feast is sly, kaleidoscopic, and utterly ingenious, a novel that only Margaret Kennedy could have written.
About the Author
Margaret Kennedy (1896–1967) found popular acclaim before the age of thirty with her 1924 novel The Constant Nymph. It sold copies in the millions and spawned no fewer than three screen adaptations. One of the most successful and prolific British novelists of the twentieth century, she also produced literary criticism, plays, screenplays, and a biography of Jane Austen.
Praise For…
"So full of pleasure that you could be forgiven for not seeing how clever it is." — Cathy Rentzenbrink
"Hilarious and perceptive, here’s the perfect seaside holiday read. We’re in Cornwall in 1947, where a landslide has buried a hotel, fatally crushing guests in the rubble . . . Events leading up to the disaster are entertainingly revealed through the diaries, letters, thoughts, and conversations of the inmates of the hotel. And what an intriguing bunch they are: obnoxious children, an arty writer and her toy boy, nutty priest . . . snobs, slobs, and the lovelorn. The nail-biting tension to discover who actually survived the tragedy will keep you on the very edge of your deckchair.” — Val Hennessy
