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Celebrated as a novelist of breathtaking historical range and depth, Adam Thorpe is also an accomplished and celebrated writer of short fiction, and the stories collected here show his deftness with character, his enormous versatility of voice.
In the title story, an expectant first-time novelist meets the publisher who has asked him to lunch, only to find himself drawn, unwittingly and inexorably, into a terrible personal tragedy. In 'The Concert Interval' Rob, an orchestral tympanist, sees his life crumble over the half-time coffee and sandwiches. In 'Heavy Shopping' a business executive is called in the middle of an important conference in Scotland with the news that his wife has given birth prematurely; his inability to cope with the resulting divided loyalties, and the way he deals with his own passive indecisiveness, reveals the terrifying emotional vacuum in his life.
Exquisitely written, these stories breathe life into their characters, exposing their deepest desires, their catastrophic fears, their perilous frailty in the face of the responsibilities they carry; they are the work of one of Britain's most important writers, working at the height of his powers.
In the title story, an expectant first-time novelist meets the publisher who has asked him to lunch, only to find himself drawn, unwittingly and inexorably, into a terrible personal tragedy. In 'The Concert Interval' Rob, an orchestral tympanist, sees his life crumble over the half-time coffee and sandwiches. In 'Heavy Shopping' a business executive is called in the middle of an important conference in Scotland with the news that his wife has given birth prematurely; his inability to cope with the resulting divided loyalties, and the way he deals with his own passive indecisiveness, reveals the terrifying emotional vacuum in his life.
Exquisitely written, these stories breathe life into their characters, exposing their deepest desires, their catastrophic fears, their perilous frailty in the face of the responsibilities they carry; they are the work of one of Britain's most important writers, working at the height of his powers.
288 pages, Paperback
First published June 7, 2006
17 people want to read
About the author
Adam Thorpe
52 books53 followersAdam Thorpe is a British poet, novelist, and playwright whose works also include short stories and radio dramas.
Adam Thorpe was born in Paris and grew up in India, Cameroon, and England. Graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1979, he founded a touring theatre company, then settled in London to teach drama and English literature.
His first collection of poetry, Mornings in the Baltic (1988), was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award. His first novel, Ulverton (1992), an episodic work covering 350 years of English rural history, won great critical acclaim worldwide, including that of novelist John Fowles, who reviewed it in The Guardian, calling it "(...) the most interesting first novel I have read these last years". The novel was awarded the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for 1992.
Adam Thorpe lives in France with his wife and three children.
-Wikipedia
Adam Thorpe was born in Paris and grew up in India, Cameroon, and England. Graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1979, he founded a touring theatre company, then settled in London to teach drama and English literature.
His first collection of poetry, Mornings in the Baltic (1988), was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award. His first novel, Ulverton (1992), an episodic work covering 350 years of English rural history, won great critical acclaim worldwide, including that of novelist John Fowles, who reviewed it in The Guardian, calling it "(...) the most interesting first novel I have read these last years". The novel was awarded the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for 1992.
Adam Thorpe lives in France with his wife and three children.
-Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 13, 2024
15 short - (of varying length) - stories from 2006 from the excellent itinerant English writer Adam Thorpe, which were a perfect antidote for me after slogging-through several long-drawn-out recent reads (for reading groups & not my own choice!) - as they covered so much ground in human relationships in relatively few words!.
Thorpe writes entertainingly, humorously & seriously at the same time, a literary skill so lacking in younger writers as we lurch, heads spinning, into an age of trashy, woke, fantasy, wishful-thinking fictions, devoid of any real, durable quality that will last into the next year let alone the next decade!
Thorpe's stories stand as good examples to other writers of how to avoid over-writing...that is to say...long-winded, short-changed zeitgeist stories with very brief shelf lives.
Read these & hope they are not remaindered into oblivion by his open-mindedness.
Thorpe writes entertainingly, humorously & seriously at the same time, a literary skill so lacking in younger writers as we lurch, heads spinning, into an age of trashy, woke, fantasy, wishful-thinking fictions, devoid of any real, durable quality that will last into the next year let alone the next decade!
Thorpe's stories stand as good examples to other writers of how to avoid over-writing...that is to say...long-winded, short-changed zeitgeist stories with very brief shelf lives.
Read these & hope they are not remaindered into oblivion by his open-mindedness.
Read
December 21, 2018Didn't finish. It wasn't actually bad, but the stories weren't drawing me in either.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews