Tongues of Flame (King Penguin) - Softcover

Parks, Tim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014010612X ISBN 13: 9780140106121

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1988

Synopsis

Focuses on fifteen-year-old Richard Bowen, son of a suburban English vicar, as he discovers that his family and community have become gripped by a religious fervor that erupts into a hysterical witchhunt

About this title

About the Author:

Born in Manchester, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. In 1981 he moved to Italy where he has lived ever since. He is the author of novels, non-fiction and essays, including Europa, Cleaver, A Season with Verona and Teach Us to Sit Still. He has won the Somerset Maugham, Betty Trask and Llewellyn Rhys awards, and been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He lectures on literary translation in Milan, writes for publications such as the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, and his many translations from the Italian include works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Tabucchi and Machiavelli.

From Library Journal:

Richard Bowen, the son of a conservative vicar in suburban England, narrates this story of Donald Rolandson, a fiery young curate who, in the name of the Sword of the Spirit, incites his parishioners to experience a feverish spiritual revival replete with evangelical testimonials, the laying on of hands, and the casting out of demons. Parks gives us a sharp, poignant, and often very amusing group portrait of the Bowen family: the stern, stony Reverend; his weepy, conciliatory wife; the pious, lackluster daughter, Anna; the adolescent, voyeuristic Richard; and the cynical and rebellious son, Adrian, from whom a devil is (presumably) tortuously exorcised by the demonic Rolandson. A carefully devised plot and brilliantly sketched characters make this simple novelette a masterpiece. Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award (1986) in Britain. Ronald L. Coombs, SUNY Downstate Medical Ctr. Lib., Brooklyn, N.Y.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 014010612X
• ISBN 13: 9780140106121
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 14