|
Showing 1 - 4 of
4 matches in All Departments
|
The Report (Paperback)
Jessica Francis Kane
1
|
R249
R201
Discovery Miles 2 010
Save R48 (19%)
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
It is an early spring evening in 1943 when the air-raid sirens wail
out over the East End of London. From every corner of Bethnal
Green, people emerge from pubs, cinemas and houses and set off for
the shelter of the tube station. But at the entrance steps,
something goes badly wrong, the crowd panics, and 173 people are
crushed to death. When an enquiry is called for, it falls to the
local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to find out what happened during
those few, fatally confused minutes. But as Dunne gathers testimony
from the guilt-stricken warden of the shelter, the priest
struggling to bring comfort to his congregation, and the grieving
mother who has lost her youngest daughter, the picture grows ever
murkier. The more questions Dunne asks, the more difficult it
becomes to disentangle truth from rumour - and to decide just how
much truth the damaged community can actually bear. It is only
decades later, when the case is reopened by one of the children who
survived, that the facts can finally be brought to light ...
'Midway through my fortieth year, I reached a point where the
balance of the past and all it contained seemed to outweigh the
future, my mind so full of things said and not said, done and
undone, I no longer understood how to move forward' May is at a
crossroads. Although her career as a gardener for the university is
flourishing, the rest of her life has narrowed to a parched
routine. Her father is elderly, her brother estranged, and she
keeps her neighbours at arm's length. The missing element, she
realises, might be friendship. As May sets off on a journey to
visit four neglected friends one-by-one, she holds herself (and
them) to humorously high standards, while at home she begins to
confront the pain of her past and imagine for herself a different
kind of future. May's quest becomes an exploration of the power,
and perhaps limits, of modern friendship.
"An elegant and deeply moving meditation on friendship, family, and
life on earth. Rules for Visiting is a wonderful novel." -Emily St.
John Mandel, author of Sea of Tranquility, The Glass Hotel, and
Station Eleven The national bestseller and an Indie Next List pick
Name a Best Book of the Year by O Magazine * Good Housekeeping *
Real Simple * Vulture * Chicago Tribune Named a Best Book of the
Summer by The Today Show * Good Morning America * Wall Street
Journal * San Francisco Chronicle * Southern Living Shortlisted for
the 2020 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize Long-listed for the
2020 Tournament of Books Dry, witty, and unapologetic, May Attaway
loves literature and her work as a botanist for the university in
her hometown. More at home with plants than people, May begins to
suspect she isn't very good at friendship and wonders if it's
possible to improve with practice. Granted some leave from her job,
she sets out on a journey to spend time with four long-neglected
friends. Smart, funny, and full of compassion, Rules for Visiting
is the story of a search for friendship in the digital age, a
singular look at the way we stay in touch. While May travels, she
studies her friends' lives and begins to confront the pain of her
own. With simplicity and honesty, Jessica Francis Kane has crafted
an exquisite story about a woman trying to find a new way to be in
the world. This nourishing book, with its beautiful contemplation
of travel, trees, family, and friendship, is the perfect antidote
to our chaotic times.
Gorgeous, melancholic stories of family relationships--and of
trying to survive the modern world. "In her life, she'd rarely felt
taller than the trees." So observes a character in Jessica Francis
Kane's beautiful and insightful debut stories.Set in the United
States and London, this striking collection introduces us to a
range of complex characters: some anguished in their pursuit of
impractical dreams, others struggling with the painful intimacy of
families. We meet a mathematician who has forsaken everything in
order to prove a theory, a young New York publicist trying to make
ends meet, an older woman author achieving fame late in life. In
each story, Kane combines elegant prose with wit, generosity, and
emotional power to portray characters at odds with the pattern of
their lives, often awkward or embarrassed or desperately impulsive.
Much of what they understand about the people who would love them
remains private, internal. In time, intimacy begins to look a lot
like mere politeness among strangers. The problem, these stories
suggest, is not misunderstanding but understanding too well.Bending
Heaven marks the debut of a stunning new talent.
|
You may like...
Poldark: Series 1-2
Aidan Turner, Eleanor Tomlinson, …
Blu-ray disc
(1)
R55
Discovery Miles 550
|