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Vanishing
Gerard Woodward
€ 11.99
€ 9.93
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for Vanishing
Paperback. A new, blackly comic novel of camouflage and mystery from the Man Booker Prize shortlisted Gerard Woodward Num Pages: 400 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 199 x 131 x 44. Weight in Grams: 362.
There is no such thing as an ordinary life. But Kenneth Brill's is more extraordinary than most. By the time he is arrested for espionage towards the end of the Second World War he has an incredible story to tell. Under interrogation he describes his unusual childhood, shares the decadent details of his training as a painter at the prestigious Slade School of Art in the 1930s and explains just why he was so very friendly with the prostitutes of London's Soho underworld; he narrates his heroic actions as a camouflage officer before El Alamein, when he helped pull off one of the greatest acts of deception in the history of warfare, and accounts for his part in a night-time break-in of the royal residence of Buckingham Palace. This is a life lived to the full, whether as son, friend, lover, teacher or pupil. The only question is: whose side is he really on? 'A huge, complex novel, at turns both blackly funny and bleakly moving, driven by truly original characters' Daily Mail 'Clever, subtle, and rewarding' Times Literary Supplement
Product Details
Publisher
Picador
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2015
Condition
New
Number of Pages
400
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780330518659
SKU
V9780330518659
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
Ref
99-50
About Gerard Woodward
Gerard Woodward is the author of a number of novels, including Nourishment and an acclaimed trilogy comprising: August (shortlisted for the 2001 Whitbread First Novel Award), I'll Go to Bed at Noon (shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize) and A Curious Earth. He was born in London in 1961, and published several prize-winning collections of poetry before turning to fiction. His collection of poetry, We Were Pedestrians, was shortlisted for the 2005 T.S.Eliot Prize. His most recent poetry collection, Seacunny, was published in 2012. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.
Reviews for Vanishing
Compelling . . .Vanishing is a portrait of an artist as a young man, with a very unreliable artist constructing the narrative. . . .ambitious, rangy and unusual
New York Times
A vividly drawn tale of war, art and sexuality
Independent
Such narrative breadth finely accommodates Mr Woodward's incisive prose: he negotiates the strange topographies of the past with a tender, childlike curiosity
Country Life
Clever, subtle, and rewarding . . . an ambitious investigation into the nature of truth . . . ingenious
Times Literary Supplement
Tantalising . . . playful yet sombre . . . What impresses is how Woodward uses first-person narration to illuminate his protagonist's troubled psychology without direct statement . . . An elegy for a lost England and an exploration of repressed sexuality, Vanishing is . . . the work of an intelligent author pursuing his own path.
Sunday Telegraph
A sprawling novel of war, betrayal, art and the truth of storytelling itself
Independent
This is a huge, complex novel, at turns both blackly funny and bleakly moving, driven by truly original characters, rich in obscure pieces of knowledge, evocative of a long-lost, little-known past, and always absorbing - in a word, a masterpiece.
Daily Mail
New York Times
A vividly drawn tale of war, art and sexuality
Independent
Such narrative breadth finely accommodates Mr Woodward's incisive prose: he negotiates the strange topographies of the past with a tender, childlike curiosity
Country Life
Clever, subtle, and rewarding . . . an ambitious investigation into the nature of truth . . . ingenious
Times Literary Supplement
Tantalising . . . playful yet sombre . . . What impresses is how Woodward uses first-person narration to illuminate his protagonist's troubled psychology without direct statement . . . An elegy for a lost England and an exploration of repressed sexuality, Vanishing is . . . the work of an intelligent author pursuing his own path.
Sunday Telegraph
A sprawling novel of war, betrayal, art and the truth of storytelling itself
Independent
This is a huge, complex novel, at turns both blackly funny and bleakly moving, driven by truly original characters, rich in obscure pieces of knowledge, evocative of a long-lost, little-known past, and always absorbing - in a word, a masterpiece.
Daily Mail