The Life-Writer
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- 5,99 €
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- 5,99 €
Publisher Description
Following the death of her husband, a literary biographer resolves to turn her professional skills to the task of piecing together aspects of his life, in particular, a journey he made years before they met – a hitchhike through France that he had tried to tell her about in the last few hours of his life. Picking her way through bundles of letters and postcards from five decades earlier, Katrin begins to uncover a life she knew nothing of, and an expedition that exceeded anything her professional, biographical subjects ever undertook. ‘Think of me then,’ her husband beseeched her, at the roadside, thumb in the air, gaily setting forth, ‘never forget me then.’
David Constantine’s passionate tale of grief and rediscovery marks only the second foray into novel writing for an author whose short fiction has won international acclaim. A great work of literature, he reminds us, is never finished, it is ‘a living and moving thing, alive in all its parts in every fibre’, designed to be inexhaustible and to outlive. As Katrin’s journey proves, the lives of those we love are similarly inexhaustible, they keep on offering up new revelations, possessing the people they leave behind, and forever needing to be re-written.
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Praise for David Constantine
-Winner of the Frank O' Connor short story prize for his collection, Tea at the Midland.
-Winner of the BBC short story award for the story 'Tea at the Midland'.
-‘Flawless and unsettling’ - Boyd Tonkin, Books of the Year 2005, The Independent.
-‘Every sentence is both unpredictable and exactly what it should be.’– AS Byatt, Book of the Week, The Guardian
-‘The excellence of the collection is fractal: the whole book is excellent, and every story is excellent, and every paragraph is excellent, and every sentence is excellent. And, unlike some literary fiction, it's effortless to read.' - The Independent on Sunday.
-'Masterful... pregnant with fluctuating interpretations and concealed motives.' - The Guardian.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Constantine (In Another Country) is known mainly for his poetry and short stories, and in this novel, his virtuosity with language and insight into character remain at the fore. After Eric's death, his wife, Katrin, attempts to reconcile his absence in the best way she knows; since she is a historical biographer, she turns Eric into her subject and attempts to document his life. The exotic figure of Monique, a Parisienne who unexpectedly arrives at his funeral, is the catalyst for Katrin's narrative. Digging through 50-year-old letters and piecing together what she can from anecdotes told by Eric's relatives and oldest friends, Katrin tries to re-create Eric before she knew him, as a young man at the beginning of his life. As her project progresses and her obsession increases, Katrin fears that she is re-creating not only her husband's first love affair but also his one great love. At times, the clarity and detail with which some stories are related so many years later strains credulity, but Constantine's analysis of character is breathtaking, and his prose is eloquent and moving. The novel is a truthful account of both the physical pain and the mental anguish of grief, and yet the journey remains a hopeful one.
