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John Purcell

Goodreads Author


Born
Sydney, Australia
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Member Since
June 2010

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John Purcell is the author of five novels, three published under a pseudonym. His most recent novels The Girl on the Page and The Lessons are published by Fourth Estate.

Everything I have done up till now has been research for The Girl on the Page.

The Girl On The Page by John Purcell As we near publication of my new novel, The Girl on the Page, I cannot but stop to wonder where the book came from. I wrote the novel so quickly. It just fell onto the page. Almost as if I had been researching it for years. But I hadn’t. I had just been working away at my day job selling books.

Then it hit me. Rather belatedly, I’ll admit – everything I had done up till now had been research fo Read more of this blog post »
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Published on June 01, 2018 23:05 Tags: books
Average rating: 3.67 · 1,862 ratings · 303 reviews · 2 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Girl on the Page

3.62 avg rating — 1,465 ratings — published 2018 — 12 editions
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The Lessons

3.87 avg rating — 397 ratings4 editions
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* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

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John’s Recent Updates

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Teeth Kicker by Glenn Orgias
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Clear eyed, uncompromising and compelling, Teeth Kicker enters the Newcastle crime scene from the basement and tells its story from the underside, giving voice to the invisible casualties of a brutal, corrupt sub-sub-culture of addicts, debtors, thie ...more
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Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason
Sophie, Standing There
by Meg Mason (Goodreads Author)
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Billie King by Shannon Kelly-White
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John of John by Douglas   Stuart
John of John
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Fruit Fly by Josh  Silver
Fruit Fly
by Josh Silver (Goodreads Author)
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Hate You to Love You by Joshua Hortinela
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John of John by Douglas   Stuart
John of John
by Douglas Stuart (Goodreads Author)
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Hate You to Love You by Joshua Hortinela
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The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
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Whistler by Ann Patchett
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More of John's books…
Quotes by John Purcell  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“He must fly regularly. I don’t. Not any more. So I have been watching everything with interest. I love to watch people and eavesdrop. I can’t help myself. This scene, with passengers taking their seats and struggling with hand luggage, everyone at cross purposes, is repeated all day on dozens of flights at hundreds of airports and must seem commonplace to those working, but this moment won’t happen again. Not just to me, but to all of us. Life is like that.”
John Purcell, The Lessons

“I have everything written down somewhere. That’s all I have ever done. I record. I take notes. And now, as memory fades, that’s all I have left. I hate growing old. I hate this longing to be something I’m not. The desire to be young again. To relive those years, to do things differently, to write differently. To make amends. I would like never to look back. But it is all I seem capable of doing these days.”
John Purcell, The Lessons

“Of course I adopted a positive outlook. When in Rome. Besides, pessimism made one a pariah. Sarcasm was outlawed, irony unknown. If one couldn’t afford two cars, a pool, three bathrooms, and a television in every room, at least one could have an indefatigably positive outlook. It was a free country, after all. But somehow my optimism always struck the
wrong note.”
John Purcell, The Lessons

Topics Mentioning This Author

“What do we usually mean by "literature"? A world of rhetoric, triteness, rounded phrases and respectable names, of people who have looked at life when they were young but who, once they have achieved fame, confine themselves to abstractions, to rehashing & to cautious common sense.”
Boris Pasternak, An Essay in Autobioghaphy

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message 1: by Tim

Tim Armstrong you back in Oz ya old bugger? where's the next book? and I hope you're well - in that order! T


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