Wounds
Published on 14. November 2013
Book
Paperback/Softback
160 pages
978-0-09-958737-8 (ISBN)
Description
Wounds begins with two lovers in bed. Their lovemaking throughout the book forms a recurring lietmotif, a counterpoint to the examination of the spiritual death of the characters.
In a South London environment of pub and fairground, home and work, the wounds of 20th century experience are evoked in prose which is both lyrical and precise. Kingy in her garden, 'loved by the most handsome women in the world'; Maura the barmaid: 'I prefer the little, thin men'; Glisten the Mayor: 'It'll be take-over time and too late' - these and the many other characters illustrate the basic theme of the novel.
In a South London environment of pub and fairground, home and work, the wounds of 20th century experience are evoked in prose which is both lyrical and precise. Kingy in her garden, 'loved by the most handsome women in the world'; Maura the barmaid: 'I prefer the little, thin men'; Glisten the Mayor: 'It'll be take-over time and too late' - these and the many other characters illustrate the basic theme of the novel.
Reviews / Votes
A delightful and illuminating book. -- John Whitley * Sunday Times * Maureen Duffy is one of Britain's foremost writers. * The Guardian * With Wounds [Maureen Duffy] injects into her writing a bitter and convincing compassion. The book is a macroscopic view of south London people, ordinary working class lives which come across with a reality so well defined that the act of reading is likely to send the reader into the middle of Clapham Common or Brockwell Park. People die, accept their inadequacies, express their eccentricities. There is dotty Kingy, a 'poor dusthole fairy', who forces the world to fit her own view, and suffers for it; the West Indian mother, whose demotic speech Miss Duffy catches with great skill, and her son, the archetypal misfit who seeks solace from a theatrical queer knowing that in the end he'll never make it. -- Barry Cole * Spectator * The relationships form haphazardly, in working hours: at Maura's pub, mostly, or on the paper round. Only the reader is priveliged to see the jigsaw fit together, deepening their mutual understanding. And the prose matches this, choosing similes that are both powerful and apt, making the whole narrative colourful and poetic. It is a delightful and illuminating book. -- John Whitley * Sunday Times *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
121 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-09-958737-8 (9780099587378)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Maureen Duffy is a British poet, playwright and novelist. After a tough childhood, Duffy took her degree in English from King's College London. She was a schoolteacher from 1956 to 1961, and then turned to writing full-time as a poet and playwright.
Her London trilogy comprises, firstly, Wounds, set in South London during the early period of Afro-Caribbean immigration; secondly, Capital tells the history of London from Neolithic times through tales of Saxon kings, anonymous invaders, the flea that spread the Black Death and the transsexual King Elizabeth; and finally Londoners follows Dante's Inferno, canto by canto, through modern gay London.
Duffy is the author of 33 published works, including seven collections of poetry, non-fiction and 16 plays for stage, screen and radio; she is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of King's College London, a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature, and holds honorary DLitts from the universities of Loughborough and Kent.
A new collection, Environmental Studies, was published by Enitharmon in April 2013 and was longlisted for the Green Carnation Prize 2013.
Her London trilogy comprises, firstly, Wounds, set in South London during the early period of Afro-Caribbean immigration; secondly, Capital tells the history of London from Neolithic times through tales of Saxon kings, anonymous invaders, the flea that spread the Black Death and the transsexual King Elizabeth; and finally Londoners follows Dante's Inferno, canto by canto, through modern gay London.
Duffy is the author of 33 published works, including seven collections of poetry, non-fiction and 16 plays for stage, screen and radio; she is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of King's College London, a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature, and holds honorary DLitts from the universities of Loughborough and Kent.
A new collection, Environmental Studies, was published by Enitharmon in April 2013 and was longlisted for the Green Carnation Prize 2013.