The Navigation Log: A Novel - Softcover

Corrick, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375760539 ISBN 13: 9780375760532

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2004

Synopsis

“Milly dipped a pen in the bottle of India ink and wrote Tom on the label. She looked at the babies. They moved their arms and legs and made small sounds. Quickly she reached out and tied the label around one of their ankles. The child kicked his legs jerkily and the label fluttered. ‘You’re Tom,’ Milly said. She looked at the other child. ‘And you’re William.’”

A sweeping saga of brothers shaped by the chaos and danger of two world wars, The Navigation Log follows Tom and William, identical twins born as the church bells ring out the armistice of 1918. Largely ignored by their preoccupied mother and adulterous father, the brothers share a close bond through their rambunctious boyhood, even as Tom becomes obsessed with airplanes while William, a burgeoning poet, is drawn to his own internal flights of fancy.

By the time the Second World War casts its shadow across England, the boys have largely gone their separate ways. Tom is a Spitfire pilot, entangled in the romantic pursuit of a tempestuous female flier, and William is a teacher at an unorthodox elementary school. The war intensifies, and so do the brothers’ differences: As Tom patrols the skies, dogfighting high above the coast of Kent, William accompanies his headmaster, students, and new wife in a lunatic pilgrimage across the bomb-strewn countryside below. It is only when they separately approach the majestic Canterbury Cathedral that the twins’ paths explosively converge one last, unforgettable time.

Marking the debut of a masterly storyteller, The Navigation Log brilliantly conjures a vanished Britain with affection, humor, and lyricism that comes close to elegy.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this title

From the Back Cover

“A moving story of youth and love leading into what is still the greatest of all wars, [The Navigation Log] flies like an arrow, swift and true. You may weep, but you will also thrill.” —James Salter, author of The Hunters and A Sport and a Pastime

“Compelling . . . A rich plot and lively story make this first novel a distinct pleasure to recommend.” —Library Journal

“Amazingly, this is Corrick’s first novel, for it is large in scope and carries the assuredness of an established author . . . the ingredients of excitement, humor, romance and adventure all making for one thoroughly good read.” —The Oxford Times

“The Navigation Log is an understated, elegiac masterpiece of a bygone England.” —Michael Collins, author of The Keepers of Truth

“Corrick’s debut is an honorable demonstration of how authentic lives acquire shaping purposes.” —The Sunday Times (London)

About the Author

A graduate of the creative-writing M.A. program at the University of East Anglia, Martin Corrick was formerly a lecturer at the University of Southampton in England. Now a full-time writer, he lives in Gloucestershire.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0375760539
• ISBN 13: 9780375760532
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304