study_for_obedience_pb
2025 Longlist

Study For Obedience

artwork-image

ABOUT
THE BOOK

A woman moves from the place of her birth to a remote northern country to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has just left him. Soon after she arrives, a series of unfortunate events occurs – collective bovine hysteria; the demise of a ewe and her nearly-born lamb; a local dog’s phantom pregnancy; the containment of domestic fowl; a potato blight. She toils in service of the community, yet feels their hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother’s property. Inside the house, although she tends to her brother and his home with the utmost care and attention, he too begins to fall ill…

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Sarah
Bernstein

Sarah Bernstein is from Montreal, Quebec and lives in the Northwest Highlands. Her fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in places like tender, Contemporary Women’s Writing, MAP, Granta and Room Magazine. She teaches modern and contemporary literature. Her first novel The Coming Bad Days was published in 2021.

Sarah Bernstein is from Montreal, Quebec and lives in the Northwest Highlands. Her fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in places like tender, Contemporary Women’s Writing, MAP, Granta and Room Magazine. She teaches modern and contemporary literature. Her first novel The Coming Bad Days was published in 2021.

We're sorry, but we couldn't find any translators matching your search. Please try using different keywords or check back later as we regularly update our collection.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

Sarah Bernstein’s A Study for Obedience follows an unnamed narrator, an outsider in a small town of deeply held suspicions and prejudice. The narrator is unreliable, obscure, difficult to connect with but compelling to read, with a distinctive voice written in an elegant, sometimes archaic prose. As she is increasingly blamed by the townsfolk for a series of local farming disasters, tension builds and the reader experiences an overwhelming sense of dread. A Study for Obedience explores power and exclusion, subservience as a survival skill and internalization of blame.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
06/07/2023
Country
Canada
Original Language
English
Publisher
Granta, Knopf Canada
Borrow this book from Libraries Ireland

RELATED FEATURES

News January 15 2025

2025 Longlist Revealed

Novels by seven Irish authors are among the 71 books nominated by 83 libraries around the world!
News November 19 2024

2025 Dublin Literary Award Judges Announced

Meet our judging panel for 2025 Dublin Literary Award
Video November 1 2024

2024 Dublin Literary Award Ceremony

2024 Dublin Literary Award Ceremony announcement live-streamed from the International Literature Festival Dublin.
Audio June 11 2024

All About Books Podcast Features the 2024 Dublin Literary Award

Dublin City FM podcaster Katy Conneely spotlights the award.

STAY CONNECTED

Stay in touch and sign up to our newsletter to receive all the latest news and updates on the Dublin Literary Award.