Edna O'Brien's most personal and most powerful novel in print from Plume for the first time.
In a poignant, heart-felt exploration of one woman's struggle to be true to herself yet hold on to the things dearest to her, award-winning author Edna O'Brien tracks the life of Nell Steadman, an innocent "country girl" desperate to gain experience in whatever manner possible. Escaping from her overbearing family into an equally stifling marriage, Nell must fight for her freedom and custody of her children.
Passionate, raw, and gorgeously written, Time and Tide is a profound exploration of the primal undertow of motherhood.
"Brilliantly expressed...O'Brien is one of the great writers of stories in the English-speaking world." -- The New York Times Book Review
" Time and Tide is O'Brien's harshest yet most beautiful work. O'Brien brings together the earthly and the delicately poetic: she has the soul of Molly Bloom and the skills of Virginia Woolf." -- Newsweek
"Adjectives for Edna O'Brien's fiction inevitably include rich, raw, bleak, and relentless. As always in Ms. O'Brien's work, there is wonderful writing about passion." -- The Wall Street Journal
"Sharp, perfectly observed, true." -- The Boston Globe
O'Brien's lyrical yet intense style and her genius for probing the truth of the inner life have won her acclaim throughout the world. Now, she explores the ties that bind mothers and children in this classic modern drama. "Another virtuoso performance."--People magazine.

Edna O’Brien

Penguin Publishing Group

New York: Plume

N A L

United States, United States of America

New York, ©1992

July 1, 1999

PS, 1999

In her rebellion against the tyranny of her husband, Nell leaves her family to search for love and adventure, while her separation from her husband becomes a battle that eventually pulls her two beloved sons away from her. Reprint.

325 pages ; 21 cm

2023-06-28