The chess garden, or, The twilight letters of Gustav Uyterhoeven - Softcover

Brooks Hansen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340618558 ISBN 13: 9780340618554

Publisher: Sceptre, 1995

Synopsis

In Ohio in 1900, the wife of Dr Uyterhoeven recieves a series of extraordinary letters from her elderly husband. It seems that after being shipwrecked he has found the legendary Antipodes, and describes a fantastical country inhabited by warring chess pieces, dominoes and dice.

About this title

About the Author

Hansen was born in 1965 and graduated from Harvard in 1987. He lives in New York and has an avid interest in sport, music and television.

From Publishers Weekly

A rare and exciting work of character and imagination, Hansen's new novel (after the highly praised Boone, which he coauthored with Nick Davis) is set in 19th-century Dayton, Ohio, in Europe and South Africa during the Boer War and on an imaginary island, the Antipodes. During his journey to the heart of the war, where he has volunteered to serve in a British-run concentration camp for forcibly displaced Boers, Dr. Gustav Uyterhoeven sends 12 letters to his wife, Sonja, in Dayton. The letters, fabulist explorations in the manner of Poe, Chesterton and Borges, describe a world where chess pieces, including a queen trapped in a tree, live, die, love, battle and philosophize. With a delightfully deft touch, Hansen carries this conceit off convincingly, and without a hint of sentimentality. Uyterhoeven is a remarkable character, dapper yet heartbroken, civilized, swinging his cane, journeying through sundry marvels with an air of concern and wonder that the reader comes to share. Meanwhile, back in Dayton, the reading of each new letter becomes an event; and, mysteriously, chess pieces mentioned in the letters begin to appear in the Uyterhoevens' garden. This is a complex and powerful work that achieves meaning in the most indelible way possible, through being an extraordinarily well-told tale. Black-and-white illustrations, not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Sceptre
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0340618558
• ISBN 13: 9780340618554
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320