The Stranger's Child (SIGNED)
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: 1st ed., 1st pr.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
Markings: Signed
A sweeping work of literary fiction, The Stranger's Child chronicles the ripple effects of a single weekend visit in 1913, when the charming and talented poet Cecil Valance arrives at the modest suburban home of his Cambridge friend George Sawley, leaving behind a poem that will shape the lives of multiple generations. Hollinghurst's novel unfolds across five distinct time periods spanning nearly a century, tracing how memory, desire, biography, and myth distort and reconstruct the truth of the past. Written with elegant, ironic precision, the narrative illustrates how literary reputations are made and unmade, and how the secrets of private lives — particularly those surrounding sexuality and class — are buried, excavated, and reinterpreted by each successive era. The novel presents a profound meditation on the nature of biography itself, arguing that the stories we tell about the dead reveal far more about the living than about their supposed subjects. Rich with social observation and suffused with a melancholy wit, it stands as one of the most ambitious and accomplished works of contemporary British fiction.
Author: Alan Hollinghurst
Format: Hardback
Published: 2011, Picador
Genre: Modern fiction
Edition: 1st ed., 1st pr.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
Markings: Signed
A sweeping work of literary fiction, The Stranger's Child chronicles the ripple effects of a single weekend visit in 1913, when the charming and talented poet Cecil Valance arrives at the modest suburban home of his Cambridge friend George Sawley, leaving behind a poem that will shape the lives of multiple generations. Hollinghurst's novel unfolds across five distinct time periods spanning nearly a century, tracing how memory, desire, biography, and myth distort and reconstruct the truth of the past. Written with elegant, ironic precision, the narrative illustrates how literary reputations are made and unmade, and how the secrets of private lives — particularly those surrounding sexuality and class — are buried, excavated, and reinterpreted by each successive era. The novel presents a profound meditation on the nature of biography itself, arguing that the stories we tell about the dead reveal far more about the living than about their supposed subjects. Rich with social observation and suffused with a melancholy wit, it stands as one of the most ambitious and accomplished works of contemporary British fiction.