The Abbess Of Crewe: A Wicked Satire On Watergate
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In a convent nestled in the English countryside, a power-hungry abbess orchestrates a scandal that mirrors the most notorious political conspiracy of the twentieth century — Muriel Spark's The Abbess of Crewe is a razor-sharp satirical novella that transposes the Watergate scandal into the cloistered world of a Benedictine nunnery. Sister Alexandra, the imperious and brilliantly manipulative Abbess of Crewe, has engineered a break-in to a rival nun's sewing box, and as the cover-up unravels, she holds court with chilling composure, reciting poetry and issuing edicts while her carefully constructed world begins to crack. Spark constructs her narrative with the precision of a master satirist, drawing unmistakable parallels between Alexandra and Richard Nixon, transforming political hubris into a wickedly comic meditation on power, vanity, and self-deception. Published in 1974, at the very height of the Watergate affair, the novel stands as one of Spark's most audacious achievements — a work that is simultaneously timely and timeless, mordantly funny and quietly devastating. Her prose is characteristically lean and luminous, stripping away sentimentality to reveal the absurdity lurking beneath institutional authority. For readers who relish satire that cuts to the bone, The Abbess of Crewe poses an unsettling question: in a world governed by theatre and spin, who truly holds power — the sinner or the one who controls the story?
Author: Muriel Spark
Format: Paperback
Genre: Modern fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In a convent nestled in the English countryside, a power-hungry abbess orchestrates a scandal that mirrors the most notorious political conspiracy of the twentieth century — Muriel Spark's The Abbess of Crewe is a razor-sharp satirical novella that transposes the Watergate scandal into the cloistered world of a Benedictine nunnery. Sister Alexandra, the imperious and brilliantly manipulative Abbess of Crewe, has engineered a break-in to a rival nun's sewing box, and as the cover-up unravels, she holds court with chilling composure, reciting poetry and issuing edicts while her carefully constructed world begins to crack. Spark constructs her narrative with the precision of a master satirist, drawing unmistakable parallels between Alexandra and Richard Nixon, transforming political hubris into a wickedly comic meditation on power, vanity, and self-deception. Published in 1974, at the very height of the Watergate affair, the novel stands as one of Spark's most audacious achievements — a work that is simultaneously timely and timeless, mordantly funny and quietly devastating. Her prose is characteristically lean and luminous, stripping away sentimentality to reveal the absurdity lurking beneath institutional authority. For readers who relish satire that cuts to the bone, The Abbess of Crewe poses an unsettling question: in a world governed by theatre and spin, who truly holds power — the sinner or the one who controls the story?