The Post Office Girl

Cinderella meets Bonnie and Clyde in this 1930s tale of the boom and bust of capitalism, by one of Europe's most revered authors. Like Neil Tennant, we were bowled over by this deeply humane story about a post office girl offered a fleeting taste of unimaginable wealth - only to have it snatched away...A young Austrian woman, Christine, toils away in a provincial post office when, out of the blue, a telegram arrives inviting her to join an American aunt she's never known in a fashionable Swiss resort. She accepts and is swept up into a world of almost inconceivable wealth and unleashed desire. She feels herself utterly transformed. Then, just as abruptly, her aunt cuts her loose and she has to return to the post office, where - yes - nothing will ever be the same. Christine meets Ferdinand, a bitter war veteran and disappointed architect, forced to work on construction sites. They are drawn to each other, just as they are crushed by a sense of deprivation, anger and shame. Inevitably their attempts at love look set to flounder until, in one desperate and decisive act, they find a way to remake their world from within.

ISBN 0954221729   DEWEY edition DC22 ISBN13 9780954221720 (What's this?)   Pages 288 Publisher Sort of Books   Published in London Imprint Sort of Books   Height (mm) 198 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 129 Publication date 15 Jan 2009   Academic level General DEWEY 833.912

"Just finished reading this beautiful, fast-moving, tragic novel... it will haunt me for a long while." Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys website) 'Stefan Zweig was a late and magnificent bloom from the hothouse of fin de siecle Vienna...The posthumous publication of a Zweig novel affords an opportunity to revisit this gifted writer...The Post Office Girl is captivating.' The Wall Street Journal 'Zweig is one of the masters of the short story and novella, and by 'one of the masters' I mean that he's up there with Maupassant, Chekhov, James, Poe, or indeed anyone you care to name.' Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian 'A brilliant writer.' The New York Times 'I do think this is exceptional. There are scenes of hope and despair that are so lucid, powerful and alive. A classic.' Esther Freud"

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