Galilee
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4.4 • 12 Ratings
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
A massive tale of secrets, corruption and magic between two feuding families – the powerful Gearys and the shadowy Barbarossas.
EVERY FAMILY HAS A SECRET
As rich as the Rockefellers, as glamorous as the Kennedys, the Geary dynasty has held subtle sway over American life since the Civil War, brilliantly concealing the depths of its corruption. All that is about to change. For the Gearys are at war. Their enemies are another dynasty – the Barbarossas – whose origins lie not in history but in myth.
When the prodigal prince of the Barbarossa clan, Galilee, falls in love with Rachel Geary, the pent-up loathing between the families erupts in a mutually destructive frenzy. Adulteries are laid bare. Secrets creep out. And insanity reigns.
Galilee is a massive tale, mingling the sharp realism of Barker’s bestseller Sacrament with the dark invention for which he’s known worldwide, and surpassing both with an epic tale which will surely rank as the crowning achievement of his career.
Reviews
‘Galilee leaps through time and space to reveal an impressively majestic vision told in beautiful prose. A fantastic, engrossing war of the worlds’
People Magazine
‘An epic, classic saga’
Daily Mirror
‘Barker is much more than genre writer’
New York Times Book Review
‘Barker’s greatest achievement – an addictive read that is nigh impossible to put down’
Birmingham Evening Mail
‘Passionate and ingenious… A ride with remarkable views’
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
About the author
Clive Barker was born in Liverpool in 1952. He is the author of The Books of Blood, Weaveworld, The Great and Secret Show, Imajica, The Thief of Always, Everville, and most recently, Sacrament. He now lives in Beverly Hills, California.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A family saga isn't what we'd expect from Barker (Sacrament), the most ambitious dark fantasist of our time, but that's what he delivers in his most elegant, and most conventional, novel yet. A Barker family saga is perforce unlike others--and so not only are two entwined families chronicled here but one, the Barbarossas, descends from voracious divinities, "two souls as old as heaven"; the other, the Gearys, are modeled roughly on the Kennedys. The story, an intricate mosaic of first-person and third, is narrated by the reclusive Maddox Barbarossa as a history he writes in the family manse hidden in the Virginia woods and designed long ago by Thomas Jefferson, one of his divine stepmother's countless lovers. Its canvas stretches from New York to Hawaii to the Middle East, from the "ancient day" when Maddox's half-brother, Galilee, was baptized through the American Civil War--during which Galilee joins forces with the impoverished Southern founder of the Geary dynasty, whose cruelty and greed ensures the Gearys' immense wealth and power. Most of the story rests in the present, however, concentrating on the newest Geary, n e Rachel Pallenberg, who marries a callow Geary scion only to witness the outbreak of "war" between the Gearys and Barbarossas and to become the latest Geary woman to fall under the spell of the near-immortal, sexually mesmerizing Galilee. The novel's scale is smaller than that of previous Barker efforts--missing are the titanic battles of form vs. chaos, good vs. evil, the riot of wonders and terrors. But it's less cluttered, too, despite abundant inspiration and invention and satisfying smatterings of Barker-brand sex, scatology and violence. Above all, there is a new richness of character, of its warpings and transfigurations by hatred and love, blood legacy and death. $150,000 ad/promo; simultaneous HarperAudio; author tour; U.K., translation, dramatic rights: Clive Barker.
Customer Reviews
Galilee
This shows Barker at the top of his game. A very well written book with a great detail in the story line. A moving and strong story that will make you want more.