Burning Down George Orwell's House
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A darkly comic debut novel about advertising, truth, single malt, Scottish hospitality—or lack thereof—and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Ray Welter, who was until recently a highflying advertising executive in Chicago, has left the world of newspeak behind. He decamps to the isolated Scottish Isle of Jura in order to spend a few months in the cottage where George Orwell wrote most of his seminal novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Ray is miserable, and quite prepared to make his troubles go away with the help of copious quantities of excellent scotch.
But a few of the local islanders take a decidedly shallow view of a foreigner coming to visit in order to sort himself out, and Ray quickly finds himself having to deal with not only his own issues but also a community whose eccentricities are at times amusing and at others downright dangerous. Also, the locals believe—or claim to believe—that there’s a werewolf about, and against his better judgment, Ray’s misadventures build to the night of a traditional, boozy werewolf hunt on the Isle of Jura on the summer solstice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ray Welter has had enough enough of his job in advertising (main by-products: more SUVs sold, more harm to the climate, more money, more damage to Ray's soul), of Chicago and his failing marriage, of grieving for his father. What he hasn't had enough of is scotch or George Orwell, whose testimony to the power of language, 1984, is partly why Ray ended up writing ads. The two intersect on the isolated Scottish Island of Jura, where Ray rents the house Orwell once stayed in. Jura's no idyll: it rains constantly, dead animals keep turning up on Ray's doorstep, and there's talk of a werewolf. The few locals are strange, hostile, and possibly violent, but the scotch is astonishingly good. The best thing on the island (and in the book) is 17-year-old Molly, who wants off Jura and away from her angry, xenophobic father, but her stay with Ray ends up being a useful time out rather than a real life change rather like Ray's entire sojourn in Scotland. Ervin excels at atmosphere and fish-out-of-water interactions.
