Ever After
Published on 11. July 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
368 pages
978-1-4711-8740-7 (ISBN)
Description
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, reissued for the first time in Scribner
Bill Unwin, an academic of dubious status, has never recovered from the death of his famous actress wife and is now convalescing from a recent brush with his own mortality. He has two tales to tell. One, spanning post-war Paris, 1950s Soho and contemporary sexual and scholarly entanglements, surveys the muddle of his own life. The other, drawn from the notebooks of a Victorian ancestor, is the very different story of Matthew Pearce, a serious-minded man whose happiness is destroyed by his compulsive search for truth.
Bill's recollections of his beautiful wife, his wayward mother and his philandering stepfather, his wry reflections on his present plight and his unexpected bond with the forgotten Matthew combine to form a potent and moving mental quest. Embracing two centuries and a host of subjects-from ballet dancers and prehistoric beasts to the bewildering persistence of love-it asks nothing less than the eternal question: 'Why should things matter?'
'A perfect piece of literary art' The Spectator
'Masterfully done' Washington Post
Bill Unwin, an academic of dubious status, has never recovered from the death of his famous actress wife and is now convalescing from a recent brush with his own mortality. He has two tales to tell. One, spanning post-war Paris, 1950s Soho and contemporary sexual and scholarly entanglements, surveys the muddle of his own life. The other, drawn from the notebooks of a Victorian ancestor, is the very different story of Matthew Pearce, a serious-minded man whose happiness is destroyed by his compulsive search for truth.
Bill's recollections of his beautiful wife, his wayward mother and his philandering stepfather, his wry reflections on his present plight and his unexpected bond with the forgotten Matthew combine to form a potent and moving mental quest. Embracing two centuries and a host of subjects-from ballet dancers and prehistoric beasts to the bewildering persistence of love-it asks nothing less than the eternal question: 'Why should things matter?'
'A perfect piece of literary art' The Spectator
'Masterfully done' Washington Post
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Simon & Schuster Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
330 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4711-8740-7 (9781471187407)
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
Graham Swift was born in 1949. He is the author of eleven novels, most recently Here We Are; three collections of short stories, including the highly praised England and Other Stories; and Making an Elephant, a book of essays, portraits, poetry and reflections on his life in writing. With Waterland he won the Guardian Fiction Prize and with Last Orders the Booker Prize. Mothering Sunday became a worldwide bestseller and won the Hawthornden Prize for best work of imaginative literature. All three novels were made into films. His books have appeared in over thirty-five languages.