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The One and Only
The Press could make Mervyn's life a misery, if they knew where he lived. But they don't. Mervyn has adopted an assumed name and established a quiet life for himself in a small town near Brighton. Then the typescript arrives. It is the autobiography of Mervyn's former school friend Bob, and it reveals not merely everything about their relationship but also Mervyn's new name and his whereabouts. If published, it would ruin Mervyn's life. And it would kill his sweet, gentle wife, Noreen. But what is it that Mervyn has done?
- GenresFiction
198 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
1 person is currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Francis King
78 books17 followersThere is more than one author with this name
Francis Henry King, CBE, was a British novelist, poet and short story writer.
He was born in Adelboden, Switzerland, brought up in India and educated at Shrewsbury School and Balliol College, Oxford. During World War II he was a conscientious objector, and left Oxford to work on the land. After completing his degree in 1949 he worked for the British Council; he was posted around Europe, and then in Kyoto. He resigned to write full time in 1964.
He was a past winner of the W. Somerset Maugham Prize for his novel The Dividing Stream (1951) and also won the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Prize. A President Emeritus of International PEN and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he was appointed an Officer (OBE) of the Order of the British Empire in 1979 and a Commander of the Order (CBE) in 1985.
Francis Henry King, CBE, was a British novelist, poet and short story writer.
He was born in Adelboden, Switzerland, brought up in India and educated at Shrewsbury School and Balliol College, Oxford. During World War II he was a conscientious objector, and left Oxford to work on the land. After completing his degree in 1949 he worked for the British Council; he was posted around Europe, and then in Kyoto. He resigned to write full time in 1964.
He was a past winner of the W. Somerset Maugham Prize for his novel The Dividing Stream (1951) and also won the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Prize. A President Emeritus of International PEN and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he was appointed an Officer (OBE) of the Order of the British Empire in 1979 and a Commander of the Order (CBE) in 1985.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 24, 2024
Book #3 in my deep dive into the, sadly, largely forgotten novelist King (actually #4, but I need to reread An Air That Kills, as it's been 8 years since I first read that one!). Entirely appropriate that Ruth Rendell, the queen of English mysteries, has provided a rave blurb for this, and she pinpoints exactly what makes King so unique: seemingly effortless brilliant prose, curiously compelling characters, and a plot that is doled out in small increments, so that it constantly keeps one guessing - right up to the final page.
The last book of King's I read was The Action, which centered around a libel case against an author's new book - and in a similar vein, this revolves around a man who feels compelled to convince his childhood friend to expurgate their common past in his upcoming autobiography, which he feels will compromise his well-guarded newly forged identity - due to some horrendous occurrences in the past. Won't say more at the risk of spoilers - but must say I doubt anyone can quite figure out exactly where things are leading, until they happen. Highly recommended, and I only wish Merchant-Ivory were still around, as they could make one heck of a film out of this.
The last book of King's I read was The Action, which centered around a libel case against an author's new book - and in a similar vein, this revolves around a man who feels compelled to convince his childhood friend to expurgate their common past in his upcoming autobiography, which he feels will compromise his well-guarded newly forged identity - due to some horrendous occurrences in the past. Won't say more at the risk of spoilers - but must say I doubt anyone can quite figure out exactly where things are leading, until they happen. Highly recommended, and I only wish Merchant-Ivory were still around, as they could make one heck of a film out of this.
October 2, 2025
Francis King is generally thought of as a highly civilised writer, but he is more than that. He anatomises and empathises with behaviour, emotions, and passionate relationships which set civilisation at naught - and before which civilisation itself must tremble. The same could be said of authors Robert Lidell (who I adore and was a friend of King).
The One and Only is a brilliant example of King's art. It is told in the first person - but in a carefully elaborate, far from linear way - by an antique-dealer living pseudonymously in hiding in Sussex. His narration is a tense, taut journey towards the crime he committed in his adolescence, one of such enormity that it has necessitated a life-long exile from his given social identity. His crime is the one which perhaps in all societies shocks the most profoundly - I won't give any details so you'll have to read the book.
Mervyn comes from a seemingly conventional family, and the torrid drama at the centre of this book unfolds in conventional enough circumstances: a marvellously realised public school, a house in Kensington near the 52 bus route, a rented villa by Lake Como. It is a world that is kept going, to a very large degree, by shibboleths which somehow exonerate it from any deeper fidelity to moral codes, and indeed from any proper appraisal of what moral truths these should serve.
If Mervyn's mother is a promiscuous, trivial-minded monster, she is one sustained by a snobbish society which can, when it chooses, wax sentimental over the notion of motherhood and family life. If the parents of Mervyn's great friend, Bob, are missionaries, carrying their country's official Christianity overseas, they are also members of the cold English bourgeoisie, incapable of giving their son any emotional sustenance.
The story is that of a quartet, Mervyn, Bob, Mervyn's mother and her feckless lover, Jim. The members of the quartet engender hatred in one another above all else, a hatred that owes much of its terrible intensity to the loveless, hierarchy-obsessed culture in which they have found themselves. It's a culture that refuses honestly to face up to desire and human mortality.
The novel ends most movingly both with an act of love which is a kind of death, and with a death informed by love. Absolutely brilliant - like all King's novels.
The One and Only is a brilliant example of King's art. It is told in the first person - but in a carefully elaborate, far from linear way - by an antique-dealer living pseudonymously in hiding in Sussex. His narration is a tense, taut journey towards the crime he committed in his adolescence, one of such enormity that it has necessitated a life-long exile from his given social identity. His crime is the one which perhaps in all societies shocks the most profoundly - I won't give any details so you'll have to read the book.
Mervyn comes from a seemingly conventional family, and the torrid drama at the centre of this book unfolds in conventional enough circumstances: a marvellously realised public school, a house in Kensington near the 52 bus route, a rented villa by Lake Como. It is a world that is kept going, to a very large degree, by shibboleths which somehow exonerate it from any deeper fidelity to moral codes, and indeed from any proper appraisal of what moral truths these should serve.
If Mervyn's mother is a promiscuous, trivial-minded monster, she is one sustained by a snobbish society which can, when it chooses, wax sentimental over the notion of motherhood and family life. If the parents of Mervyn's great friend, Bob, are missionaries, carrying their country's official Christianity overseas, they are also members of the cold English bourgeoisie, incapable of giving their son any emotional sustenance.
The story is that of a quartet, Mervyn, Bob, Mervyn's mother and her feckless lover, Jim. The members of the quartet engender hatred in one another above all else, a hatred that owes much of its terrible intensity to the loveless, hierarchy-obsessed culture in which they have found themselves. It's a culture that refuses honestly to face up to desire and human mortality.
The novel ends most movingly both with an act of love which is a kind of death, and with a death informed by love. Absolutely brilliant - like all King's novels.
December 20, 2018
This is a mystifying book. It is in many ways a coming of age story. It is propped by a now fairly conventional structure: two intertwined parallel narratives, one in the present and the other presenting reminiscences of the protagonist's teenage years.
But The One and Only is also a much darker beast and King takes the elements of the coming of age genre to an extreme, reaching for other less fortunate tropes. An ominous secret hangs over the lead character and the plot itself, that is only revealed in the last third of the book.
The characters populating The One and Only are rather unpleasant too. Often their motivations don't feel verisimilar (Although the mother is the most successful of the lot). Even the main love story doesn't feel quite true: We are given no clues as to what attracts the main character to his paramour who is presented in a negative way and made as unsexy as can be, down to his name.
Although King was gay, he appears to have little interest in the male body, even when it is denuded or an object of desire. The descriptions of the female body are much more focused. This is problematic when same-sex male desire plays so prominent a role in the plot.
The language is engaging and the book pleasurable to read but it doesn't feel quite satisfying and the best that can be said for it, I think, is that is different, and as such a curiosity.
But The One and Only is also a much darker beast and King takes the elements of the coming of age genre to an extreme, reaching for other less fortunate tropes. An ominous secret hangs over the lead character and the plot itself, that is only revealed in the last third of the book.
The characters populating The One and Only are rather unpleasant too. Often their motivations don't feel verisimilar (Although the mother is the most successful of the lot). Even the main love story doesn't feel quite true: We are given no clues as to what attracts the main character to his paramour who is presented in a negative way and made as unsexy as can be, down to his name.
Although King was gay, he appears to have little interest in the male body, even when it is denuded or an object of desire. The descriptions of the female body are much more focused. This is problematic when same-sex male desire plays so prominent a role in the plot.
The language is engaging and the book pleasurable to read but it doesn't feel quite satisfying and the best that can be said for it, I think, is that is different, and as such a curiosity.
February 13, 2024
Wow.. !que maravilla!! Pienso leer todo lo que haya sido publicado de este autor y que definitivamente hay que recuperar del olvido
September 6, 2023
Five stars for the writing, but the story was difficult for me to say I "liked" it. it's disturbing. I'm almost tempted to tag this one as horror. This is my first book by King but I want to read more. His style is unique -- a welcome break from the paint-by-numbers approach of so many authors.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews