Frozen Music (The Harper Short Novel Series) - Hardcover

Francis King

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060158751 ISBN 13: 9780060158750

Publisher: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988

Synopsis

Disturbing revelations of the past and present merge when twenty years after abandoning India, Rupert, his father, and his father's sensual young bride return to visit the grave of Rupert's mother, who had died there at a tragically young age

About this title

About the Author

Born in Switzerland, Francis King spent his childhood in India, where his father was a government official. While still an undergraduate at Oxford he published his first three novels. He then joined the British Council, working in Italy, Greece, Egypt, Finland and Japan, before he resigned to devote himself entirely to writing. For some years he was drama critic for the Sunday Telegraph and he reviewed fiction regularly for the Spectator. He won the Somerset Maugham Prize, the Katherine Mansfield Prize and the Yorkshire Post Novel of the Year Award for Act of Darkness (1983). His penultimate book, The Nick of Time, was long-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize. Francis King died in 2011.

"One of our great writers, of the calibre of Graham Greene and Nabokov." Beryl Bainbridge

From Publishers Weekly

A gifted British author, King (Act of Darkness) adds a deeply moving drama to the publisher's short-novel series. Impressive evocations of India, past and present, and compassionate awareness of human relationships pull readers into events related by Rupert Reynolds. With his frail, elderly father Philip and new, young stepmother, Kirsti, Rupert goes to the town in India that was home until the death of Philip's first wife, Irene. Twenty years after her death, the pilgrimage to Irene's grave awakens Rupert's memories of the mother he lost when he was eight and of doctor Jack MacKenzie, who was the understanding friend his remote father was not. As an adult, Rupert secretly considers Philip weak, a man who has accomplished nothing. Guilt over his unfilial contempt is magnified by Rupert's desire for Kirsti and her unwilled but helpless response. The painful situation is resolved in a surprising, unforgettable event that gives Rupert a true perspective of his father, a strong man concealed behind a reserved persona.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper & Row, Publishers
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0060158751
• ISBN 13: 9780060158750
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 143
• Illustrator: Patrick Procktor