The Trick of It - Softcover

Frayn, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571204295 ISBN 13: 9780571204298

Publisher: Faber & Faber Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

He knows everything about her before they meet: more about her nine novels then she does herself. He has devoted his life to studying and teaching them and yet he is four times as clever as she is. Now, as she steps off the train in London, something about her in the flesh sets him thinking. Maybe he has a chance to resolve the one remaining mystery at the heart of things.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Frayn was born in London in 1933 and began his career as a journalist on the Guardian and the Observer. His novels include Towards the End of the Morning, Headlong, Spies and Skios. His seventeen plays range from Noises Off, recently chosen as one of the nation's three favourite plays, to Copenhagen, which won the 1998 Evening Standard Award for Best Play of the Year and the 2000 Tony Award for Best Play. He is married to the writer Claire Tomalin.

From Publishers Weekly

As wickedly funny as it is intelligent and perceptive, this first work of fiction in 16 years by the British playwright ( Noises Off ; The Benefactors ) and novelist ( Sweet Dreams ) is a reader's delight. In a series of letters to a colleague in Australia, the nameless narrator, a literary critic at a provincial British university, gradually unfolds the story of his marriage--a dream come true that has turned into a nightmare. Having based his reputation on his literary criticism of the works of the novelist JL, the narrator invites her to speak to his students. She comes; he falls in love but bumbles the aftermath of their coupling; he pursues her nonetheless; they marry. But the union of writer and critic is not ideal. With impeccable timing, Frayn gradually reveals the academic's conundrum: though his wife is colorless and dull in person, she has the trick of turning life into eventful fiction, while he, poor man, can neither influence what she writes (he tries) nor write as well--in fact, write at all (he tries that too). Mordantly witty, the letters disclose first the writer's glee at having "cornered the market, as it were," then his desperation: he loses his job since it's unseemly that "a husband expound his own wife." The author has the trick his protagonist lacks: he can take a serious theme, spin it out into deliciously calibrated comedy, then darken it with a touch of rue. The poignant ending adds perfection to this flawless comedy of manners. First serial to the New Yorker.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber Ltd
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0571204295
• ISBN 13: 9780571204298
• Binding: Paperback