The Perfect Stranger
A Memoir of Love and Survival
Will be published approx. on 14. May 2015
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-1-910463-01-7 (ISBN)
Description
'Hard to think of a memoir that describes the experience [of love] with as much honesty, passion and precision' David Nicholls
'A small masterpiece of its kind, reflecting all the wit, unabashed frankness and literary elegance of its author' Max Hastings
First published in 1966, this extraordinary memoir has collected a passionate band of devotees. Written with a poet's precision, it is a funny, absorbing and brilliantly portrayed rite of passage - from school playing fields to war's battlefields, holiday camps to writers' hang-outs, Brighton to Paris, Korea to Oxford, Barcelona to Jakarta...
Driving the narrator is a desire to recount the effect of a singular young woman; the love of her and the loss of her. A joyous and movingly wise evocation of youth, travel and love; those moments of maximum brilliance, at the edge of possibility.
'A small masterpiece of its kind, reflecting all the wit, unabashed frankness and literary elegance of its author' Max Hastings
First published in 1966, this extraordinary memoir has collected a passionate band of devotees. Written with a poet's precision, it is a funny, absorbing and brilliantly portrayed rite of passage - from school playing fields to war's battlefields, holiday camps to writers' hang-outs, Brighton to Paris, Korea to Oxford, Barcelona to Jakarta...
Driving the narrator is a desire to recount the effect of a singular young woman; the love of her and the loss of her. A joyous and movingly wise evocation of youth, travel and love; those moments of maximum brilliance, at the edge of possibility.
Reviews / Votes
'A joyous yet unsentimental account of Kavanagh's early life and his few years with Sally. A story of love and tragic loss' Guardian 'Not sentimental nor self-pitying but vivid, humorous and bent upon describing a world in which the one person who had seemed to make sense of it had been lost' Telegraph 'Patrick Kavanagh's memoir is a small masterpiece of its kind, reflecting all the wit, unabashed frankness and literary elegance of its author' Max Hastings 'A fine memorial to love and youth' Michael Frayn, author of Headlong and Spies 'Funny, unique and powerful. A wise, sad, wonderfully written memoir that's ripe for rediscovery' David Nicholls 'To hear the truth so devastatingly and yet so joyfully encountered is rare in an age where autobiography has been flattened by the massed weight of political and public reminiscence. This autobiography, from its beginning to its bitter end, is a celebration of joy: joy in youth, in woman, in male camaraderie, in the struggle of art, in married love' Times Literary Supplement '[A] remarkable work of prose... It won the Richard Hillary Memorial Prize, for in reality it was a testimony to the absence of the one person who could help him work out the puzzle of life, his wife, Sally' Independent 'I've re-read The Perfect Stranger many times and still think it, though unique, a model "of its kind" ' Derek Mahon 'A terrific book, vivid, funny and moving... The account of his narrow escape from the great battle in Korea is brilliant, as is in a quite different way the elegiac conclusion to the book' David LodgeMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Duckworth Books
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-910463-01-7 (9781910463017)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
P. J. Kavanagh (1931-2015) was a poet, writer, actor, broadcaster and columnist. He went to a Benedictine school, served in the Korean war during national service, worked for the British Council in Barcelona and Indonesia, and acted on stage and TV - his last appearance in an episode of Father Ted. The Perfect Stranger was awarded the Richard Hillary Memorial Prize in 1966, and his novel A Song and Dance won the 1968 Guardian Fiction Prize. Poetry remained his major occupation, and his Collected Poems was given the Cholmondeley Award in 1992.