A Few Days in the Country: And Other Stories
Elizabeth Harrower
Internationally acclaimed for her five brilliant novels, Elizabeth Harrower is also the author of a small body of short fiction. A Few Days in the Country brings together for the first time her stories published in Australian journals in the 1960s and 1970s, along with those from her archives—including ‘Alice’, published for the first time in 2015 in the New Yorker.
Essential reading for Harrower fans, these finely turned pieces show a broader range than the novels, ranging from caustic satires to gentler explorations of friendship.
STORIES IN THIS COLLECTION
The Fun of the Fair
Alice, published in the New Yorker
The City at Night, published in the Guardian
Summertime, published at Lithub
The North Sea
The Cornucopia, published in Harper’s Magazine
The Beautiful Climate
Lance Harper, His Story
The Cost of Things
English Lesson
It Is Margaret
A Few Days in the Country
INTERVIEWS
Read a feature by senior editor David Winter on the Text blog
New Yorker
ABC RN Books & Arts
REVIEWS
andA Few Days in the Country
‘Lyrical, insightful and finely tuned.’
‘Enchanting…That Harrower has, up until recently, been denied a place in the Australian literary canon, is a tragedy—one that can only be remedied by reading her. A Few Days in the Country: And Other Stories is a fantastic place to start.’
‘One has to think hard of a book in which so much pleasure has been wrenched from so much pain. While the skies are overcast here, what happens on the ground is brightly lit, hilariously cast by lashings of irony and overstatement…This is the work of an activist in disguise as an entertainer.’
‘[A Few Days in the Country creates] taut portraits and compact examinations of power, vulnerability and hope…Harrower’s best stories slip as surely into your bones as her novels.’
‘The range of stories and styles demonstrates Harrower’s extraordinary literary skill…A Few Days in the Country and Other Stories offers no sure-fire formulas, but through its interrogation of characters’ psychological motivations it affords a deeper understanding of human behaviour.’
‘[Harrower] reveals an astonishing facility to reveal a world in a few brush strokes.’
‘Harrower has the disconcerting knack of looking at life and seeing it unadorned.’
‘Vital, vivid stories by a master storyteller.’
‘Wide-ranging in mood and style, this is a virtuoso but warm-hearted display of the genre.’
‘These are wise and serious stories about deep feelings. Harrower is one of those writers you can’t believe you’ve missed – but what a joy to discover her.’
