Oxygen
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
'ANDREW MILLER'S WRITING IS A SOURCE OF WONDER AND DELIGHT' Hilary Mantel
'ONE OF OUR MOST SKILFUL CHRONICLERS OF THE HUMAN HEART AND MIND' Sunday Times
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Novel Award
'Beautiful'
The Times
'Superbly realised'
Sunday Telegraph
'Breathtaking'
Irish Times
The third novel from the critically acclaimed author of Pure - a deeply moving exploration of courage, love and liberation in the modern age
In the summer of 1997, four people reach a turning point: Alice Valentine, who lies gravely ill in her West Country home; her two sons, one still searching for a sense of direction, the other fighting to keep his acting career and marriage afloat; and László Lázár, who leads a comfortable life in Paris yet is plagued by his memories of the 1956 Hungarian uprising.
For each, the time has come to assess what matters in life, and all will be forced to take part in an act of liberation - though not necessarily the one foreseen.
PRAISE FOR ANDREW MILLER
'Unique, visionary, a master at unmasking humanity'
Sarah Hall
'A writer of very rare and outstanding gifts'
Independent on Sunday
'A highly intelligent writer, both exciting and contemplative'
The Times
'A wonderful storyteller'
Spectator
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Three characters on the cusp of crisis and one on the brink of death inhabit Miller's moving new novel, in which each grapples with despair and discovers that love can confer purifying strength. Widowed school administrator Alice Valentine is dying at her home in England's West Country. She's dependent on an oxygen tank and on her younger son, Alec, who has left his London apartment to care for her. Depressed and feeling unable to cope, the unstable Alec has coincidentally received an assignment that could make his career: to translate a play called Oxyg ne, written in French by Hungarian exile L szl L z r. Alice's older son, Larry, had always been the successful brother, early on as a tennis star and later as a TV actor. But Larry's been out of a job for some time, and drink and drugs have eroded his moral judgment, alienated his wife and possibly affected his six-year-old daughter. When the family convenes at Alice's bedside for what will be her last birthday, each member is submerged in private struggles. Meanwhile, in Paris, L szl is surrounded by friends and grateful for the devotion of his lover, Kurt, but he remains guilt-ridden because of his failure to avert a tragedy during the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Contacted by Albanian exiles conspiring to fight the Serbs in Kosovo, L szl has a chance to redeem himself on a dangerous mission. With brilliant dexterity, Miller intertwines the strands of his plot and leads each character to epiphanies, capped by a breathtaking denouement. Miller's first novel, Ingenious Pain, won several important literary prizes, including the IMPAC. It's no wonder that Oxygen was a Booker Prize finalist. Written in elegant, resonant prose, this book breathes with compassion and honesty, and with the rare quality called hope.
