August is a Wicked Month

Product Information

A fine first edition, first impression, first printing of Edna O¿Brien¿s fourth book August is a Wicked Month in hardback cloth covers with a near fine dust jacket, published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape in 1965. A few plot points are a bit over the top but for all that it’s still a realistic portrayal of a woman in Ellen’s predicament and at her time in life.

Edna O'Brien is the recipient of many awards including the Irish Pen Lifetime Achievement Award, the American National Art's Gold Medal and the Ulysses Medal. When he comes to take the boy on holiday, she makes her own to the south of France, spending her days in a haze of decadance and forgetfulness. It made me think about so much and I can see from having re-read the earlier sections that O’Brien had carefully plotted the entire story arc. This review is a complete spoiler, so if you have not read the book and plan to, you might want to read it first.This is more of a precursor to the Charles Manson darkness with which that decade culminated than a celebration of excess. Ellen is bored at home in London, bored with her straight-laced sexual encounters and bored with life in general. This started out in a light hearted way - a sticky August, the beginnings of a potentially stickier liaison and then the decision to abandon London and head to Cannes where a holiday might promise the luxury of fast men, faster cars and nights of heady passion as surf crashes on beaches and the Moroccan zephyr flutters the luxuriant drapes of the master bedroom.

A week into her leave, a male friend she’s known for about a year drops by and kisses her in the garden.

Upon publication August Is a Wicked Month, as with most of O'Brien's early books, was banned in several jurisdictions, including by Ireland's strict Catholic rulers. A Woman of my Age’ by Nina Bawden: A woman begins to question everything about her life and her marriage when she goes on holiday to Morocco with her husband.