This is not a novel with a surprise, twist ending. Rather, it's a story that reveals secrecy in incremental degrees. Little by little we find out what the protagonist knows and does not yet know about her circumstances and destiny. Incidents that do not seem particularly monumental to us are revealed as she reflects on her memories, with their importance not to be understood by the reader until later on. By the time we've figured out what's going on (I won't spoil things by revealing what that is), we are invested in the lives of the central characters. Once invested, it's human nature to root for some version of a happy ending. Our best wishes are the result of our humanity. I suppose that the nature of humanity is what the beautiful novel Never Let Me Go is ultimately about. Above all else, what we tend to never let go of until it's pulled from our grasp is hope.
One of the most acclaimed novels of the 21st Century, from the Nobel Prize-winning author
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense…
By far the strangest book I have ever read, gaining points on sheer audacity alone, which isn't to say that it doesn't also earn high marks because the readable parts are beautifully written. Describing a book as having "readable parts" infers that other parts are - something different. The most concise and accurate description of House of Leaves is "something different". It features a layering of narrative points of view built upon other narrative points of view, and the reader is repeatedly snatched from one to another with no apparent pattern, rhyme or reason. One day Will Navidson, a Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist expert at wielding a still camera as well as a video camera, notices something odd about the dimensions of the new home he and his family have moved into. The interior is a smidgen wider than the exterior. Like Alice in Wonderland, it isn't long before he finds himself going down the rabbit hole. Navidson makes a film about his multiple explorations within the impossible inner dimensions of the house. A man named Zampano studies the film and everything about what happened and goes insane in the process. Johnny Truant reads what Zampano left behind and loses his mind as well. We the reader of Danielewski's novel then come along and nearly lose our minds trying to keep track of where we're at in the fascinating experiment in novel crafting.
“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations,…
James is a brilliant retelling and reimagining of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that is told from the point of view of Jim rather than Huck. Since the plot is already set by Mark Twain's novel, Percival Everett starts his novel out on footing that is familiar to us, featuring a boy and a man and their adventures on the mighty Mississippi River. The point of view has changed. We're seeing the world through the eyes of an enslaved man rather than an All American boy. As with Twain's version, there are times when Jim and Huck get separated from each other. This is where Percival Everett has freedom to invent his own story within the confines of the original. The character James is multifaceted as written by Everett because he is not merely a vehicle for Huck to learn how he feels about a society that permits and enforces slavery. He is not there primarily for a boy to realize what type of man he wants to become and avoid becoming. James is a fully realized fictional character who acts not how Twain's plot dictates he must, but rather, how a man in his situation might behave when push comes to shove.
'Truly extraordinary books are rare, and this is one of them' - Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha
James by Percival Everett is a profound and ferociously funny meditation on identity, belonging and the sacrifices we make to protect the ones we love, which reimagines The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. From the author of The Trees, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Erasure, adapted into the Oscar-winning film American Fiction.
The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new…
Audrey believes that her ex is in the past, her relationship with Marshall is entirely platonic, and that James' love is unimpeachable. Then an unplanned pregnancy shuffles their places in each other's lives. Marshall is willing to be there for Audrey without judgment, to steadily wait for friendship to blossom into passion, and to accept her spiteful decision to keep James in the dark about their baby. Eventually secrets are revealed and commitments put to the test. Matters of Convenience examines the repercussions of unpredictable timing and rash solutions, asking if happiness results from choice, fate or serendipity.
