Private View - Softcover

Jean McNeil

3.33

18 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0753816911 ISBN 13: 9780753816912

Publisher: Phoenix Paperbacks, 2003

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Set in contemporary London, it's Bridget Jones meets Matthew Collings with a dash of pure Canadian angst thrown in. A talented young artist is trying to get over the death of her boyfriend on a disastrous trip to Central America. Blackly humorous, Jean McNeil's deeply introspective style and her wild imagination are perfectly suited to this tale of modern Bohemia.

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About the Author:

Jean McNeil grew up on Cape Breton Island in Canada but has lived in London since 1991 and has spent long periods living in Latin America. Her first novel Hunting Down Home was published in 1996. She is also the author of the Rough Guide to Costa Rica.

Review:

Finished copies have gone out, and some great reviews are coming in with more expected.There was a reading and reception at Canada House on 6th August, with Lynn Coady (published by Jonathan Cape), which we treated as a launch. 24of us then went out for a very enjoyable dinner.Jean has done the full page 'My Stop' feature in METRO and has also been interviewed on The Robert Elms Show (BBC London) and Steve Jones Breakfast Show (LBC) with an interview on Between the Lines (One Word Radio) to come. She has also written a short story for the Sunday Express magazine (pub. 10 November '02). She will be interviewon Excess Baggage (BBC Radio 4) on Saturday 16th November, for a programme about London. 'Haunting absences lie at the elusive centre of this memorable new novel by Jean McNeil...McNeil's take on the fashionable east London art scene is devastating, gaining its corrosive effect not by foolish exaggeration (no half elephants in tanks of Chanel No. 5) but by absolute plausibility...McNeil casts a...sharp and evocative eye on twenty-first century London...McNeil writes very atmospherically about locations, with an acute scenting of place that suddenly becomes full-blown psychogeography...a memorable piece or reportage from the psychic spaces of the way we live now.'Phil Baker, TLS 'JeanMcNeil writes with a strange mix of irony and dreamy sensuality which constantly throws up odd images and juxtapositions...If the book becomes more a meditation than a narrative, it still manages to satisfy and surprise.'Stephen Blanchard, Time Out '...dry, witty prose...McNeil, who was brought up in Nova Scotia and is also a travel writer, conveys with great freshness the area's irrepressible, beautiful-ugly quality, its capacity for absorbing different sorts of people and for re-inventing itself in the preocess. The fact that, by the end,all four main characters have left London emphasises that it is the life of the city, not the transient individualsm that really interests her.'Ruth Pavy, Independent 'By constantly pitching dream and reality, desiure and hope, need and fear, this intelligent, watchful novel reveals itself as far darker and deeper than it initially appears.'Eileen Battersby, Irish Times 'Thelanguage of the novel is complex and imaginative and the style lyrical. The imagery conveyed is highly evocative and well suited to the subject matter McNeil has chosen.'Waterstone's Books Quarterly '...a convincing portrait of time, place and clique.'i-D magazine '...it is a pageturner and is just the sort of book to pack for the beach.'Art Monthly 'It is a singular pleasure to read McNeil's prose. She has an extraordinary feel for launguage and on every page she surprises the reader with arresting turns of phrase...Private View isa delight to read, McNeil a talent to watch.'Canada Post We've also hadsome great reviews from Canada:'...skillfully evoked...a story that is rich in atmosphere and challenging in the breadth of its ideas.'Quill & Quire 'The genius of McNeil is to hit on a hybridized style that can be both hotly lyrical in the way that D.H. Lawrence is lyrical, and coolly intropspective in the way that Virginia Woolf is introspective, without making a mess of it...Jean McNeil is a strong, clear-headed writer who brings freshness and vibrancy to characters who are weak and muddled but struggling to rise above their predictability and low spirits.'Globe and Mail 'Private View is like any intriguingwork of art; the more you look at it the more it reveals.'Chatelaine Magazine '....her writing is...strong and vivid...she [McNeil] is able to render landscape with precision and in convincing detail. But it is in her rendering ofrelationships (in particular the one between Alex and Conrad) that she trulyshines.'Toronto Star There has also been a review on the website www.london.a

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