When she receives a book recounting the life of a mysterious abbess whose picture graces the cafeteria, 92-year-old Marian Leatherby, trapped inside a sinister retirement home, unexpectedly embarks on a joyous, brilliantly surreal adventure. Original.
The Hearing Trumpet is the story of 92-year-old Marian Leatherby, who is given the gift of a hearing trumpet only to discover that what her family is saying is that she is to be committed to an institution. But this is an institution where the buildings are shaped like birthday cakes and igloos, where the Winking Abbess and the Queen Bee reign, and where the gateway to the underworld is open. It is also the scene of a mysterious murder. Occult twin to Alice in Wonderland, The Hearing Trumpet is a classicof fantastic literature that has been translated and celebrated throughout the world.
An old woman enters into a fantastical world of dreams and nightmares in this surrealist classic admired by Björk and Luis Buñuel.
One of the first things ninety-two-year-old Marian Leatherby overhears when she is given an ornate hearing trumpet is her family plotting to commit her to an institution. Soon she finds herself trapped inside a sinister retirement home where the elderly must inhabit buildings shaped like birthday cakes and igloos, endure twisted religious preaching, and eat in a canteen overlooked by the mysterious portrait of a leering abbess. But when another resident secretly hands Marian a book recounting the life of the abbess, a joyous and brilliantly surreal adventure begins to unfold. Written in the early 1960s, The Hearing Trumpet remains one of the most original and inspirational of all fantastic novels.
