The Society of Others: A Novel - Softcover

Nicholson, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1400078210 ISBN 13: 9781400078219

Publisher: Anchor, 2006

Synopsis

Cool, clear-eyed, and bluntly cynical, the young narrator of The Society of Others embarks on a journey without a destination. He hitchhikes through Europe only to find himself in a mystifying country where terrorists are inexplicably after him, and so is a sinister government. In a surreal landscape where people are shot to death without reason and social control runs deep, he must learn who to trust–and what to stand for. Fast paced and provocative, a gripping philosophical thriller, The Society of Others is an ingenious meditation on the nature of contemporary innocence and identity.

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.

"From the Hardcover edition.

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: Anchor
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1400078210
• ISBN 13: 9781400078219
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240