Consolation

by James Wilson

1910, and Corley Roper, an eminent children's author of his age, mourns the death of his young daughter. Estranged from his wife, and wracked by grief, he happens one night upon Mary Wilson, a woman in a similar position, as she mourns her stillborn son. No longer able to inhabit the fictional world that made his name, and haunted by the spectre of this other lost child, Roper decides that it is only through engaging with the real world, and the mystery of Mary Wilson's dispossessed heritage, that he may find purpose. Meanwhile, a young American journalist, Alice Dangerfield, has travelled across the Atlantic on a quest of her own, to track down her most cherished author.

324 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2008

About the author

JAMES WILSON was born and brought up near Cambridge, and studied History at Oxford University. He now divides his time between London and France.

In 1975 James received a Ford Foundation grant to research and write The Original Americans: US Indians, for the Minority Rights in London. Over the next twenty-five years he travelled widely in the US and Canada, working on – among other projects – a number of radio and TV documentaries, including the award-winning Savagery and the American Indian and The Two Worlds of the Innu, both for the BBC. His critically-acclaimed history of Native Americans, The Earth Shall Weep, was published by Picador in the UK in 1998, and by Grove/Atlantic in the US the following year. In 2000, it won a Myers Outstanding Book award. James continues to serve as a member of the executive committee of Survival, an international organization campaigning for the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide.

James is the author of four novels, all published by Faber & Faber: The Dark Clue (described by Allan Massie in The Scotsman as ‘wonderfully entertaining’, and by The Washington Post as ‘a stunning first novel’); The Bastard Boy (longlisted for the IMPAC Award); The Woman in the Picture (‘multi-layered, deeply absorbing and entertaining’ – The Times; ‘A superb achievement’ – Kevin Brownlow); and Consolation (‘an animated, haunting and surprisingly uplifting novel’ – The Observer).

A fifth novel, The Summer of Broken Stories, will be published by Alma Books in April 2015.

You can visit James online at jameswilsonauthor.com, and on Twitter at @jcwilsonauthor.

Reviews

[Nigel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hard book to pin down but it rewards with persistence. It begins bizarrely and confusingly and it's hard to see where it's going but it does settle down into a satisfying period shaggy dog story.

[Dee (PlainlyReads) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The real ratings would be 2.7 stars.

I bought this book because I was enticed by the synopsis. I thought it would be about a journey of how the characters overcome the grieve of losing a child, and along the way they might able to see the ghost of one of the dead children. It was such a let down to me because the book is totally about something else. Frankly speaking, in my opinion, the journey that the character went through doesn't have anything to do with what the writer build up in the first part of the book. What I mean is that the book can have entirely different build up in order to fit the plot lines even better. Maybe then I will like the book.

The reason why I gave it 2.7 is because, despite the fact that I'm not really a fan of the storyline, I really like writing style of this book. Although it carries a heavy theme, and a bit slow paced (I ended up skipping 50+ pages), the writer manages to imagine the setting of the story quite clear and the language that he used is pretty simple to understand.

All in all, if I ever stumble upon a book by this author I might buy it. But first I might have to read the reviews of the book.

[Nick Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heart-breaking quest - exquisitely imagined and delicately realized. This is one of those rare books that, when you put it down, a great wave of emotion floods over you. And it's all the more powerful for having been held just off stage for much of the narrative. We're in the world of a successful Edwardian children's author (think Ratty and Toad), whose life is falling apart and can't bear to pick up his pen to write another yarn about Alcuin Hare and Mr Largo Frog. It's a wonderfully effective evocation of a buttoned-down world that is aching to express its sense of loss. And as the quest unfolds we begin to realise we're embarked on an exploration of the meaning & function of story-telling. The final pages of this beautifully written book moved me beyond words.

[P J · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like emotion in my books, and this is a very touching novel. It was extremely pleasurable to read, with lush description, and accurate attention to period detail and dialogue. It is a picaresque journey which examines the complexity of stunted, damaged, and even stillborn personalities, and offers them all redemption through art and love--a
brilliant, poignant homage to the value of (children's) literature.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Consolation is a truly magnificent novel. Very touching, very moving, it revisits the strange early twentieth century world that gave us those haunting children's stories we always remember. It examines, in equally haunting (in several senses of the word) detail, the adult world and the fearful tensions that gave rise to them. Wilson's novels always reflect us back upon ourselves. They are truly literary - fully aware of what fiction can achieve in really writerly hands.

[Call_me_Florence · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a strange book. Even now I don't know what to think about it. It was not the tale I expect it to be related on the text on the book cover. But it has interesting characters and I love that the main figure is a children's book author. Although it was sometimes a little tough to read I have make it till the end. Try it if you are open to a story about loss and a long searching for heritage and if you like some kind of "ghostly meetings".

[Susan Clark]

The synopsis intrigued me, I found this a strange but beautifully written book about a grief stricken children's author who tries to help someone in the same situation. He embarks on a search, in which the result is not really appreciated. I had to finish it, it kept me to the end. I loved all the places he visited, as an ex-pat it bought back many memories. I was left to create my own happy ending.