The Society of Others - Hardcover

Nicholson, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385513275 ISBN 13: 9780385513272

Publisher: Nan A. Talese, 2005

Synopsis

In this gripping fable, a young man on an aimless journey crosses a border into a world of unexplained threats and terrifying violence.

Drawing readers in with a cool, oddly appealing bluntness, the narrator of The Society of Others launches a disturbingly surreal tale of his adventures in an unnamed country somewhere in Eastern Europe. His plan is to hitchhike through Europe without any destination, but like a character in a Kafka novel, he finds himself confronting a world that defies rational explanation and descending into an orgy of violence that threatens to destroy his power to control his identity.

Written with a pace and thrust of a thriller, The Society of Others is a stunning intellectual adventure, a moral fable bursting with art, poetry, music, and profound philosophical insight.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

New fiction from the screenwriter of the Academy Award-winning Gladiator.

The nameless narrator of The Society of Others is an alienated youngster who sees no meaning in life. He doesn't even see the point of getting out of bed in the morning. To get his nagging family off his back he embarks on an aimless hitchhiking adventure. When he is picked up on the highway on the way to the Channel Tunnel by a truck driver spouting Descartes and Kant, it seems as if he is at the start of a picaresque coming-of-age journey around Europe. But then the truck reaches the border of a repressive European state and the narrator watches in terror as the driver is tortured and killed by a sinister band of men in black bomber jackets. What was so dangerous to this country's regime in the cache of banned books he was smuggling in to the country?

With all the pace and thrust of a thriller, the hero is propelled into a dizzying sequence of increasingly terrifying Kafka-esque adventures, as he tried to understand the bloody struggle between the regime's secret police and a band of equally ruthless and fanatical freedom fighters, and his own role in that struggle. Written to be read at several different levels and to provoke debate, this novel is also a moral fairytale, bursting with art, poetry, music and ideas.

About the Author

William Nicholson is a highly sought-after Hollywood screenwriter whose work on Gladiator helped garnered the film an Oscar. He is also the bestselling and award-winning children’s author of The Wind Singer trilogy. He lives in East Sussex with his wife and their three children.

About this edition

• Publisher: Nan A. Talese
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0385513275
• ISBN 13: 9780385513272
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240