'A masterly study of grief, memory and love
recollected' - Professor John Sutherland, Chair of
Judges, Man Booker Prize 2005. When art historian Max
Morden returns to the seaside village where he once
spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a
recent loss and confronting a distant trauma. The Grace
family had appeared that long-ago summer as if from
another world. Mr and Mrs Grace, with their worldly ease
and candour, were unlike any adults he had met before.
But it was his contemporaries, the Grace twins Myles and
Chloe, who most fascinated Max. He grew to know them
intricately, even intimately, and what ensued would
haunt him for the rest of his years and shape everything
that was to follow. 'A novel in which all of his
remarkable gifts come together to produce a real work of
art, disquieting, beautiful, intelligent, and in the
end, surprisingly, offering consolation' - Allan Massie,
''Scotsman''. 'You can smell and feel and see his world
with extraordinary clarity. It is a work of art, and
I'll bet it will still be read and admired in
seventy-five years' - Rick Gekoski, ''The Times''.
'Poetry seems to come easily to Banville.There is so
much to applaud in this book that it deserves more than
one reading' - ''Literary Review''. 'A brilliant,
sensuous, discombobulating novel' -
''Spectator''. |
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