If the invader comes - Hardcover

Beaven, Derek

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841155918 ISBN 13: 9781841155913

Publisher: London : Fourth Estate, 2001

Synopsis

The widely anticipated 3rd novel from the author of The Acts of MutinyClarice Pike and Vic Warren are from completely different backgrounds. An impossible affair has already driven them thousands of miles apart. 1939 finds Clarice in Malaya where her father is an obscure company doctor, and Vic in East London, an unemployed shipwright badly married to Phylis, Clarice's cousin. As their feelings conspire to draw the lovers back together, the world erupts with a terrible violence. It is the relentlessness of male brutality that forces Vic to grope towards what real manhood might be.If the Invader Comes combines themes from Derek Beaven's previously acclaimed Newton's Niece and Acts of Mutiny to portray a wartime England where human relationships are threatened as much from within the family as from occupied Europe. Exciting, moving and ultimately optimistic, Derek Beaven's new novel represents a daring leap in British Fiction.

About this title

About the Author

Derek Beaven lives in Maidenhead, Berkshire. His first novel, Newton's Niece (1994) was shortlisted for the Writers' Guild Best Novel Prize and won a Commonwealth Prize. His second, Acts of Mutiny (1998) was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize.

Review

`Offers reminders of Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair"...[A] powerful, sharply conceived novel.' The Times `The novel's chief strength derives from a psychological delicacy: a file of scrupulously observed temperaments, ground down by circumstance, expressing themselves in dialogue pitched just on the right side of fracture. Beaven excels, too, in descriptions of physical sensation...All the abilities shown in his excellent second novel, "Acts of Mutiny", are well to the fore.' D.J. Taylor, Independent `This is the kind of fiction we like...Beaven imagines the war background so completely that you almost forget what actually happened...[he] shows it as clear as a Vermeer mirror.' David Robertson, Scotsman `Large, deft, prickly and ambitious. Beaven weaves a highly convincing and alarming picture of a country sinking into a state of war. You believe in everything Beaven tells you because his work practically explodes with narrative assurance.' Julie Myerson, Guardian

Edition details

• Publisher: London : Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1841155918
• ISBN 13: 9781841155913
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 374