My Name Is Legion: A Novel - Hardcover

Wilson, A. N.

2.89

57 ratings by Goodreads

9780374217426: My Name Is Legion: A Novel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374217424 ISBN 13: 9780374217426

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005

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A Bonfire of the Vanities for contemporary London

From A. N. Wilson, the renowned historian and novelist, comes a stunningly bold new work of fiction set in the darkly glamorous media world. Wilson's London is a bleak, if occasionally hilarious, place: murderous, lustful, money-obsessed, and haunted by strange gods.

The Daily Legion is a rag that peddles celebrity gossip and denounces asylum seekers. The secret is that its financial survival depends on the support of a brutal African government. Recklessly defending this corrupt dictatorship, the newspaper faces off against Father Vivyan Chell, an Anglican monk and missionary who is working to overthrow the corrupt regime. They wage a smear campaign against the priest. Freedom fighters join the battle. Violence escalates.

Called "a big, broad, sweeping book, as disturbing as it is funny" by The Guardian, My Name Is Legion is a savage satire on the morality of contemporary Britain-its press, its politics, its church, its rich, its underclass. At times shocking, at times tragic, it is a provocative take on present-day England, delivering both delicious fun and acid social commentary.

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From the Inside Flap:

A wickedly savage satire on the morality of contemporary Britain, doing for today what Evelyn Waugh did for the thirties and Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities did for the eighties.

"Had Father Vivyan been killed by his own pride and fanaticism; by his belief that he could ‘save' a dangerous and mentally unstable boy? Had he been killed by his own fanatical political posture, his alliance with those whom the rest of the world saw as terrorists?... Or had he been destroyed by the right wing press, and in particular by Lennox Mark, the proprietor of the Legion? Perhaps by a bit of all these things..."

"So it was that within minutes of Father Vivyan's soul leaving his body and soaring to God alone knows where... The silence of that religious house was broken... They could hear the coarse accents of Lennie Mark shouting, ‘Don't you realize -- you CUNT -- don't you realize who I FUCKING am?'"

A.N. Wilson has written a savage satire on the morality of contemporary Britain -- its press, its politics, its Church, its rich, its underclass. His London is a bleak, if occasionally hilarious, place: murderous, randy, money-obsessed and haunted by strange gods.

From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author:

A. N. Wilson, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. The Victorians was published in 2002 to massive critical acclaim. He lives in North London.

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