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"Powerful, moving, brilliant . . . an utterly captivating read, and I came away from it with this astonished thought: There's nothing this writer can't do." --Elizabeth Gilbert For readers of A Gentleman in Moscow and Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, an ambitious, spellbinding historical novel about sensuality, censorship, and the novel that set off the sexual revolution. On the glittering shores of the Mediterranean in 1928, a dying author in exile races to complete his final novel. Lady Chatterley's Lover is a sexually bold love story, a searing indictment of class distinctions, and a study in sensuality. But the author, D.H. Lawrence, knows it will be censored. He publishes it privately, l...
Brighton, May 1940. A time of tension and change. Geoffrey Beaumont becomes Superintendent of the enemy alien camp on the edge of town, his son Philip is gripped by the rumour that Hitler will make Brighton his English HQ, and his wife Evelyn meets Otto Gottlieb, a 'degenerate' German-Jewish painter imprisoned in the camp. As love collides with fear, the power of art with the forces of war, the lives of Evelyn, Otto and Geoffrey are changed irrevocably.
An exploration into the impact of the Stalinist purges on the lives, families and contacts of members of the British Communist Party.
A historical novel explores the exciting and passionate life and times of Anne Bonny, a cross-dressing pirate, as she sails the high seas finding adventure, challenging sexual stereotypes, and seeking to preserve her disguise.
Sexy, tender, funny and haunting by turns, the stories in Alison MacLeod�s daring new collection are tales of lovers, would-be lovers and lovers gone wrong. Here we discover ECT patient Gloria, who falls for her anaesthetist, �Dr Numb�; the cerebral Nick, who chases after the heavily pregnant Katie at an Ikea sale; and the legendary lovers Heloise and Abelard re-imagined for the twenty-first century. With settings that range from a cheap Paris caf� to London�s Hayward Gallery, and from the Brighton seafront to the Nova Scotia coast, these stories are at times magical, at times grittily real, but always affecting.
'Sometimes I wonder, if I had known that it was going to take me fourteen years to paint this painting of the Crucifixion with Douglas as Jesus, and what it would take for me to paint this painting, would I have been as happy as I was then?' Susan Alison MacLeod, a Glasgow School of Art graduate with a dark sense of humour, first lays eyes on Douglas MacDougal at a party in 1988, and resolves to put him on the cross in the Crucifixion painting she's been sketching out, but her desire to create 'good' art and a powerful, beautiful portrayal means that a final painting doesn't see the light of day for fourteen years. Over the same years, Douglas's ever-more elaborately designed urine-based installations bring him increasing fame, prizes and commissions, while his modelling for Susan Alison, who continues to work pain and suffering on to the canvas, takes place mostly in the shadows. This Good Book is a wickedly funny, brilliantly observed novel that spins the moral compass and plays with notions of creating art.
An acutely observed, evocative collection of short stories blending fiction, biography, and memoir--from a Booker-longlisted author. Evocative, sensual, and tender, these stories confront our reality culture and interrogate our relationship with iconic figures, coming to life at the boundary between reality and fiction. A woman emerging from mourning spends her savings on a fur coat, a coat she will wear to a dance that will change her life. A professor of cardiovascular physiology lingers on the cusp of consciousness as he waits for his new heart to be delivered, still beating, from another body--and is carried on a tidal wave of memories to an attic room half a century ago. Visiting Sylvia...
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In this inspiring collection of essays, a range of award-winning, established and newly published writers offer highly personal accounts of their creative processes. Authors reveal the anxieties, considerations and discoveries that shaped their own first novels, arming new writers with practical advice, focus and inspiration. The book's final section presents the perspectives of an agent, a publisher and an author on the business of publishing a first novel. Writing a First Novel offers an illuminating read for both aspiring and seasoned writers. It contains contributions by: - Hanif Kureishi - Valerie Martin - Johanna Skibsrud - David Vann - Maile Chapman - Edward Hogan - Kishwar Desai - Wena Poon - Alison MacLeod - Andrew Cowan - Jane Rusbridge - Isabel Ashdown - Helon Habila - David Swann - Soumya Bhattacharya - Jane Feaver - Hannah Westland - Helen Garnons-Williams - Lionel Shriver
From the author of The Fortune Men, longlisted for The Booker Prize 2021... 'From Somaliland's bitter past blooms a moving and mature novel of conflict and survival' Independent It is 1988 and Hargeisa waits. Whispers of revolution travel on the dry winds but still the dictatorship remains secure. Soon, and through the eyes of three women, we will see Somalia fall. Nine-year-old Deqohas left the vast refugee camp she was born in, lured to the city by the promise of her first pair of shoes. Kawsar, a solitary widow, is trapped in her little house with its garden clawed from the desert, confined to her bed after a savage beating in the local police station. Filsan, a young female soldier, has ...