Shroud - Hardcover

Banville, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375411305 ISBN 13: 9780375411304

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003

Synopsis

Axel Vander is an old man, in ill health, recently widowed, a scholar renowned for both his unquestionable authority and the ferocity and violence that often mark his conduct. He is known to be Belgian by birth, to have had a privileged upbringing, to have made a perilous escape from World War II–torn Europe—his blind eye and
dead leg are indelible reminders of that time. But Vander is also a master liar (“I lied to lie”), his true identity shrouded under countless layers of intricately connected falsehoods. Now a young woman he doesn’t know, and whom he has dubbed “Miss Nemesis,” has threatened to expose the most fundamental and damaging of these lies. Vander has agreed to travel from California to meet her in Italy—in Turin, city of the most mysterious shroud—believing that he will have no difficulty rendering her harmless.

But he is wrong. This woman—at once mad and brilliant, generous and demanding—will be the catalyst for Vander’s reluctant journey through his past toward the truths he has hidden, and toward others even he will be shocked to discover.

In Shroud—as in all of his acclaimed previous novels—John Banville gives us an emotionally resonant tale, exceptionally rich in language and image, dazzling in its narrative invention. It is a work of uncommon power.

About this title

From the Back Cover

“In this mesmerizing novel, taut with intelligence, compassion and wit, Banville has once again worked his extravagant alchemy, transmuting the prose of the familiar world into the poetry of revelation and renewal.”
—Independent on Sunday (London)

“John Banville’s literary powers are so commanding that it feels almost wilful to withold full assent from Shroud, a book almost entirely composed of bursts of amazing prose.”
—The Observer

“Banville is one of the great fictional stylists of our time, a deliberate and deliberative man who picks over his words with the finest tweezers available from the lexicographical pharmacy.”
—The Spectator

“Without being a remotely moralistic writer, he has produced a starkly intense moral parable”
—Sunday Tribune

“Morally gripping as it is, Shroud is still a Banville performance, playing brilliantly with language in the gap between actuality and perception . . . Shroud will not easily be surpassed for combination of wit, moral complexity, and compassion. It is hard to see what more a novel could do”
—Irish Times

“Shroud certainly demonstrates [Banville’s] ability to generate extreme tension and utterly uncanny atmospheres; it also situates him firmly within a great European tradition.”
—The Guardian (London)

“In beautiful, lucid prose John Banville describes a tragedy so strongly rooted in history and character that, like all real tragedies, it could not happen otherwise.”
—The Times (London)

About the Author

John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. His first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970. His other books include Nightspawn, Birchwood, The Newton Letter, Mefisto, and The Book of Evidence (which was shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prize). He lives in Dublin.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0375411305
• ISBN 13: 9780375411304
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 257