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The Tower
The Tower | Thea Lenarduzzi
1 post | 1 read
Once upon a time, there was a tower on a hill, beyond the dark trees, somewhere north. An octagonal tower on two levels: glass upstairs and stone below, beneath a steep slate roof - a folly, it was said. According to locals, a young woman named Annie who fell ill was confined to the tower by her father for three years and died there, alone. Fascinated by Annie's story, Thea Lenarduzzi attempts to piece the past together in a formidable act of imagination, which, tugging at the strings of the how, why and who of stories, begins to unravel the very idea of storytelling itself. Veering between fiction, memoir, fairy tale and folklore, The Tower is an extraordinary book about power, abuse and why we don't always tell the story we set out to tell.
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OutsmartYourShelf
The Tower | Thea Lenarduzzi
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Mehso-so

A writer, here named T, becomes obsessed with the story of a young woman named Elizabeth Annie, who according to local legend, lived in a specially constructed tower on her family's estate around the turn of the 20th century. Annie had apparently contracted tuberculosis & instead of going to a sanitorium, her father constructed the octagonal tower. (continued)

OutsmartYourShelf After 3 years, Annie was said to have died of the illness, & over the next few years the other family members either died or moved away with the house being demolished whilst the tower still stands. After trying to piece together the story over several years, including looking for Annie's birth & death certificates, even visiting the area & speaking to locals T learns something that turns her whole understanding of Annie's story on its head.
3d
OutsmartYourShelf I'm definitely more of a history & facts person so I found the sections on the rich & famous who had died young of tuberculosis very interesting. The section where it moves onto the exploration of the function of storytelling was not really my thing. Stories have been used since the distant past to explain the unexplainable & to make the unfamiliar familiar. 3d
OutsmartYourShelf Some stories will resonate with us, whilst others don't, because of what they speak to in our own lives or how our experiences lead us to read things into them that perhaps aren't there. Overall it was interesting but I wouldn't rush to pick it up again. 3.25⭐

My thanks to #NetGalley & publishers, Fitzcarraldo Editions, for the opportunity to read an ARC.
3d
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DieAReader 💖💖💖 3d
CSeydel Very nice review! 2d
31 likes6 comments