During an ice age in this novel, the protagonist receives visitors like her friend’s wolf-headed sister Anubeth and the immortal postman Taliesin. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this novel whose elderly protagonist is dismayed to be sent to the ineffectual Dr. Gambit’s retirement home, where she is fascinated by a portrait of a winking abbess, descends into hell, and eats herself.
ANSWER: The Hearing Trumpet
[10e] This author’s introduction to Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet praises how it “rewrites our expectations of old ladies.” Elisabeth visits the elderly songwriter Daniel in his care home in this author’s “post-Brexit” novel Autumn.
ANSWER: Ali Smith
[10m] In an afterword to The Hearing Trumpet, the author of this novel praises how it centers “odd old ladies.” It likely influenced this novel’s elderly protagonist, who studies astrology and takes revenge for the murder of her dogs.
ANSWER: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead [or Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych] (by Olga Tokarczuk)
<CM, British Literature>