Distant Music
Published on 10. November 2014
Book
Paperback/Softback
368 pages
978-1-78470-049-2 (ISBN)
Description
A richly imaginative novel of love, loss, time and the rise and fall of a great maritime empire, that sends two thwarted lovers spiralling through the chaos of history.
The story begins in 1429 on Madeira, when a peasant girl meets a boy- a Jewish outsider- from a Portuguese sailing ship. Esperanca and Emmanuel know they must part when the ship sails. From that first meeting and parting, others follow...
Emmanuel is in turn sailor, mapmaker, bookseller, jazz musician; Esperanca an illiterate peasant, a rich girl in Faro and a clever, bookish recluse who confronts a murderer in nineteenth-century Lisbon. In twentieth-century London, Esperanca is faced with a double incarnation, one of the true Emmanuel and the other a shadow. Over the centuries the couple face peril and tenderness. Each life is short. What survives is love.
The story begins in 1429 on Madeira, when a peasant girl meets a boy- a Jewish outsider- from a Portuguese sailing ship. Esperanca and Emmanuel know they must part when the ship sails. From that first meeting and parting, others follow...
Emmanuel is in turn sailor, mapmaker, bookseller, jazz musician; Esperanca an illiterate peasant, a rich girl in Faro and a clever, bookish recluse who confronts a murderer in nineteenth-century Lisbon. In twentieth-century London, Esperanca is faced with a double incarnation, one of the true Emmanuel and the other a shadow. Over the centuries the couple face peril and tenderness. Each life is short. What survives is love.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
436 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78470-049-2 (9781784700492)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Lee Langley is the author of nine highly praised novels including Changes of Address (shortlisted for the Hawthornden Prize) and Persistent Rumours (winner of a Commonwealth Writers' prize). Her most recent book was A Conversation on the Quai Voltaire, a volume of short stories, poetry and journalism. Her adaptation 'The Tenth Man', based on a Graham Greene story, was made into an award-winning movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Derek Jacobi. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in London.