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Biography & Autobiography Literary

My Turquiose Years

by (author) M.A.C. Farrant

Publisher
Greystone Books Ltd
Initial publish date
Apr 2004
Category
Literary, Personal Memoirs
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781926812199
    Publish Date
    Apr 2004
    List Price
    $11.99

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Description

"

A touching and hilarious memoir of an absent mother and a vanished time. Throughout her childhood, Marion Farrant heard exotic stories of the sophisticated life her mother, Nancy, led aboard cruise ships and in Australia. Nancy's world of furs, jewels, cigarette holders, and handsome men seemed miles away from the west-coast hamlet of Cordova Bay, where Marion lived with her aunt and uncle. But things changed the year she entered her teens. Nancy threw everyone into a tizzy with the surprise announcement that she was coming for a visit.

In this memoir of her fourteenth summer, Marion Farrant captures a lost time and place with hilarity and affection. The setting is Vancouver Island, the year 1960. It is the heyday of the nuclear family; the time of The Three Stooges, the Red Menace, and Whipper Billy Watson; the apex of plastic, arborite, and everything turquoise: high heels, pedal pushers, refrigerators, cars, and even, at Easter, the fur of live rabbits. Witty, tender, and wry, My Turquoise Years is a book for anyone who remembers being a teenager.

"

About the author

Born in Sydney, Australia and raised in Victoria, British Columbia, M.A.C. Farrant is the acclaimed author of nine previous collections of satirical and humourous short fiction, and two works of non-fiction. Her writing has been widely anthologized in North America and has been dramatized for television; Farrant is also a frequent contributor to leading magazines such as Adbusters and Geist. Her 2004 memoir, My Turquoise Years, is being adapted into a stage play in conjunction with the Arts Club Theatre of Vancouver; production is slated for the 2011/12 season.

Farrant has taught fiction workshops in Canada and Australia. She was a visiting writer-in-residence at Macquarie University in Sydney. A full-time writer currently residing in North Saanich, B.C., she has also taught part-time at the creative writing department in the University of Victoria and reviews books for the Vancouver Sun and the Globe & Mail.

Farrant’s work is infused with acerbic wit and iconoclastic innovation. As the Globe & Mail has noted, “Farrant is better at startling us with unnerving, often misanthropic visions of everyday life than perhaps any other Canadian writer”.

BC Bookworld has called her “Canada’s most acerbic and intelligent humourist.”

M.A.C. Farrant's profile page

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