All the Beloved Ghosts
Published on 8. March 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-4088-6378-7 (ISBN)
Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARDS
Acutely observed, evocative collection of short stories from the Man Booker Prize-longlisted author of Unexploded, blending fiction, biography and memoir
Hovering on the border of life and death, these stories form a ground-shifting collection, taking us into history, literature and the hidden lives of iconic figures.
In 1920s Nova Scotia, as winter begins to thaw, a woman emerges from mourning and wears a new fur coat to a dance that will change everything. A teenager searches for his lover on a charged summer evening in 2011, as around him London erupts in anger. A cardiac specialist lingers on the edge of consciousness as he awaits a new heart - and is transported to an attic room half a century ago. In an ancient Yorkshire churchyard, the author visits Sylvia Plath's grave and makes an unexpected connection across time. On a trip to Brighton, reluctant jihadists face the ultimate spiritual test. And at Charleston, Angelica Garnett, child of the Bloomsbury Group, is overcome by the past, all the beloved ghosts that spring to life before her eyes.
Precise, playful and evocative, these exquisitely crafted stories explore memory, the media and mortality, unfolding at the line between reality and fiction. Written with vigorous intelligence and delicate insight, this collection captures the surprising joys, small tragedies and profound truths of existence.
Acutely observed, evocative collection of short stories from the Man Booker Prize-longlisted author of Unexploded, blending fiction, biography and memoir
Hovering on the border of life and death, these stories form a ground-shifting collection, taking us into history, literature and the hidden lives of iconic figures.
In 1920s Nova Scotia, as winter begins to thaw, a woman emerges from mourning and wears a new fur coat to a dance that will change everything. A teenager searches for his lover on a charged summer evening in 2011, as around him London erupts in anger. A cardiac specialist lingers on the edge of consciousness as he awaits a new heart - and is transported to an attic room half a century ago. In an ancient Yorkshire churchyard, the author visits Sylvia Plath's grave and makes an unexpected connection across time. On a trip to Brighton, reluctant jihadists face the ultimate spiritual test. And at Charleston, Angelica Garnett, child of the Bloomsbury Group, is overcome by the past, all the beloved ghosts that spring to life before her eyes.
Precise, playful and evocative, these exquisitely crafted stories explore memory, the media and mortality, unfolding at the line between reality and fiction. Written with vigorous intelligence and delicate insight, this collection captures the surprising joys, small tragedies and profound truths of existence.
Reviews / Votes
Like a piece of finely wrought ironwork, uncommonly delicate but at the same time astonishingly strong and tensile . . . a novel of staggering elegance and beauty * Independent * MacLeod is dazzlingly good at evoking a whole life through a single snapshot and at bending and stretching her prose as she moves between an impressive range of narrative personae -- Lara Feigel * Guardian * An intelligent, perceptive novel by a writer of great descriptive power ... Like her modernist forebears, MacLeod knows that life and death, the terrible and the mundane always co-exist - her genius lies in illustrating these truths while simultaneously spinning a bona fide pageturner * Daily Mail * MacLeod's fictions are evocations of desire and its mysteries . . . [Her] characters are strong, and they are worth listening to * Guardian * Compelling, fast-paced, powerful. The descriptions of wartime Brighton are pin-sharp . . . the denouement is as heartrending as it is unexpected * Financial Times * Finely wrought, moving and haunting. What a wonderful novel this is. Bravo Alison MacLeod -- Polly Samson Unexploded is an unforgettable book. With exquisitely researched and rendered detail, the author plunges us into the panic and paranoia of war -- Bidisha A persuasive period setting, an intricate plot, sumptuous prose * Daily Telegraph * MacLeod has an engaged delight in the stuff of life * Times Literary Supplement * Full of simmering tension, resentment and unexpressed passion . . . A bold, cleverly-told story from a writer who knows exactly what she's doing -- Viv Groskop * Observer * The author's grasp of emotions, and history of art as well as politics, lend depth and charge ... [There is also] the sensuality of MacLeod's prose, whether dealing with art, desire or love; and her uncanny way of allowing us to experience the thought processes of her characters as if they are traversing our own brain synapses * Independent on Sunday * Alison MacLeod is a strikingly original voice. Her stories create intimate worlds ... and make the reader live in them with an intensity which is haunting, disturbing and above all beguiling -- Helen Dunmore MacLeod's range - spanning the movingly real to the mysteriously surreal - is excitingly, imaginatively realised and unified in awareness of the dark menace of love's uncertainty * Metro * Excellence book-ended by brilliance ... An eruption of ideas and linguistic flair ... Highly recommended * Time Out * Compelling characters and pin-sharp insights into their emotional and psychological landscapes are Alison MacLeod's strong suit ... These are arresting tales; undercurrents of passion swirl beneath their controlled, elegant surfaces -- Book of the Week * The Lady * if you only read one book of short-stories this year, it should be this one ... MacLeod obviously loves taking risks - mixing the metaphysical with the mundane - and she is so brilliant at it that she never fails to keep the reader engaged * Daily Mail * This blurring of reality and imagination gives the stories an unsettling quality ... The stories exercise a hypnotic effect, providing a kaleidoscope of life, colour and anguish -- The best new literary fiction * Daily Express * Throughout these stories we are reminded, with skillful subtlety, of just how much the past is integral to the present * Country Life * Seamlessly knots together essayistic and imaginative modes of writing...McLeod's formal sophistication and her impeccably elegant, richly textured prose make this another collection to savour -- Edmund Gordon * Sunday Times * Short story lovers will devour Alison MacLeod's evocative All The Beloved Ghosts * Stylist * The story entitled 'We Are Methodists' proved as page-turning as any thriller ... The stories are clever and meaningful, but in a good way: perfectly balanced, told with wit, insight and delicious phrasing. Brilliant! * Sussex Life *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
211 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-6378-7 (9781408863787)
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
Alison MacLeod
All the Beloved Ghosts
E-Book
03/2017
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€14.49
Available for download
Person
Alison MacLeod was born in Canada and has lived in the UK since 1987. She is the author of three novels, The Changeling, The Wave Theory of Angels and Unexploded, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2013, and a collection of stories, Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction. Alison MacLeod is the joint winner of the Eccles British Library Writer's Award 2016. She is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at the University of Chichester and lives in Brighton.
alison-macleod.com
alison-macleod.com