"Like Dr. Frankenstein's invented creature, the larger-than-life,
flesh-and-blood characters of London Bridge in Plague and Fireare
made from pieces of the dead past that are forged in the
consciousness of an historian--himself a creation of history and of
David Madden's literary magic. Struck by the lightning bolt of the
co-joined imaginations of Madden and his reader, the fabricated
beings rise up and walk on London Bridge, and they have the
audacity to speak for themselves in completely convincing and
haunting voices." --Allen Wier, author of Tehano
For more than two thousand years, Old London Bridge evolved through
many fragile wooden forms until it became the first bridge built of
stone since the Roman invaders. With over two hundred houses and
shops built directly upon the bridge, it was a wonder of the world
until it was dismantled in 1832.
In this stunningly original novel, Old London Bridge is as much a
living, breathing character as its architect, the priest Peter de
Colechurch, who began work on it in 1176, partly to honor
Archbishop Thomas a Becket, murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. In
1665, the year of the Great Plague, Peter's history is unknown, but
Daryl Braintree, a young poet living on the bridge, resurrects him
through inspired flights of imagination. As Daryl chronicles the
history of the bridge and composes poems about it, he reads his
work to his witty mistress, who prefers making love.
Among other key characters is Lucien Redd, who as a boy was
sexually brutalized by both Puritans and Cavaliers during the
English Civil War before being kidnapped off London Bridge onto a
merchant ship. Thus traumatized, he aspires to become Lucifer's
most evil disciple. Twenty years later, young Morgan Wood is forced
into seafaring service to pay off his father's debts; and,
compelled by obsessive nostalgia for his early life on the bridge,
he keeps a journal. Joining Morgan aboard ship, Lucien "befriends"
him--to devastating effect.
The shops and houses on the bridge survive both the Great Plague
and Great Fire, believed to be God's wrath upon sinful London.
Fearing that God may next destroy the bridge and its eight hundred
denizens, seven of its merchant leaders revert to a pagan
appeasement ritual by selecting one of their virgin daughters for
sacrifice. To enact their plan, they hire Lucien, who has returned
to the bridge to burn it out of pure meanness. But as Lucien
discovers, the chosen victim may be more Lucifer's favorite than he
is.
Like his creation Daryl Braintree, David Madden employs diverse
innovative ways to tell this complex, often shocking, but also
lyrical story. The author of ten novels--including The Suicide's
Wife, Bijou, and most recently, Abducted by Circumstance and
Sharpshooter--Madden has, with London Bridge in Plague and Fire,
given us the most ambitious and imaginative work of his
distinguished career.
General
Imprint: |
University of Tennessee Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
August 2012 |
First published: |
August 2012 |
Authors: |
David Madden
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 30mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
352 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-57233-870-8 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General & literary fiction >
Modern fiction
|
LSN: |
1-57233-870-9 |
Barcode: |
9781572338708 |
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