Man Overboard - Hardcover

Binding, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0330487477 ISBN 13: 9780330487474

Publisher: Pan Macmillan, 2005

Synopsis

In Man Overboard, Tim Binding tells the story of English war hero Commander Crabb, who disappeared in 1956 amid rumours of his capture by the USSR. Imaginative and funny, this novel is an exploration of Englishness.
Industrious, resilient, fond of his drink, socially awkward and physically fearless, Commander Lionel 'Buster' Crabb was an Englishman who put defence of King and country above all else. In Gibraltar, and later Palestine and Italy, his feats of underwater daring made him the navy's greatest frogman and a legend of the Second World War.
But Crabb's private life was both a struggle to achieve human intimacy and a struggle to find his place in post-war Britain. How could someone whose identity was forged in war, who was the friend of government moles and double agents, reconcile himself to the rewards of an ordinary life? When in April 1956, during a visit to Britain by First Secretary Khrushchev, Commander Crabb disappeared, was it by accident or by design?

About this title

About the Author

Tim Binding was born in Germany in 1947. He is the author of In the Kingdom of Air, A Perfect Execution, Island Madness, On Ilkley Moor and Anthem. He lives in Kent with his wife and daughter.

Review

'Such an arresting subject for a novel that one wonders why no one ever thought of it before ... Binding fashions a convincing picture of a restless postwar world ... a consistently entertaining and resourceful novel' D. J. Taylor, Guardian 'His triumph is to have created a marvellous, anachronistic hero in a novel which not only tries to explain a famous mystery, but takes a hard look at what Britain lost when the war was won' Daily Mail 'The dialogue is always a comic delight ... Man Overboard is one half James Bond story (except more soulful), and one half Ealing Comedy. As such, it is pretty irresistible' Daily Express 'Tim Binding has written a historical novel which with a very light touch dramatizes the faint but inescapable foreignness of the past without turning it into a costume drama; its poignancy is the product of conviction. Binding wields a range of linguistic fire-power often missing from contemporary fiction, as much at ease with the visionary set piece as with bar-room banter ... [Man Overboard] is a remarkable feat of compression, representing a significant artistic advance' Sean O'Brien, TLS

Edition details

• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0330487477
• ISBN 13: 9780330487474
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200