Spring - Softcover

Szalay, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099552779 ISBN 13: 9780099552772

Publisher: Vintage, 2012

Synopsis

'This presumably being the fact that he was in love with her. Or thought he was. Or said he was. Or said he thought he was...'

James and Katherine meet at a wedding in London. It is January 2006, towards the end of the money-for-nothing years, and James is a man with a varied past - entrepreneur, estate agent, film producer, horse-racing tipster, former dot com millionaire - now living alone in a flat in Bloomsbury. Separated from her husband, a successful paparazzo, Katherine is working at an interim job in a luxury hotel. Taken with each other, they exchange phone numbers at the wedding, but from then on not much goes according to the script.

Narrated from several different perspectives, Spring is a kaleidoscopic and complex portrait of a relationship, of contemporary England, and of the ebb and flow of money. Instantly recognisable and unbearably real, it is a love story unlike any you will have read.

About this title

Review:

"Spring confirms that [Szalay] is a writer with the whole range of talents...often outstanding"--Sunday Times

"The lives of two disconsolately unfulfilled people start to blaze, thanks to Szalay's often brutal honesty...formidable ear for dialogue - which transforms the most mundane exchanges into comedy, a la Mike Leigh - and seductively sensuous descriptions"--Metro

"A texture of truthfulness quite unlike that of any other fiction abut London that I know...a very beautifully poised novel"--Evening Standard

"The forensic scrutiny of every aspect of a fledgling relationship, from both points of view, is one of the many delights of Spring...devastatingly powerful... also extremely funny, in that understated, unexpected way that makes you burst into sudden noise in public places and alarm those around you. Szalay's dialogue is pithy and sharp; his peripheral characters lip-smackingly delicious"--Independent on Sunday

"A brave venture...psychologically realistic"--Financial Times

"A sharp, truthful, funny portrait of contemporary manners that is also unexpectedly moving"--The Times

"Lambent prose, which glitters and glints"--Daily Mail

"Highly unusual in its realism and astuteness about the way we live now...in its understated way, a very beautifully poised novel" --David Sexton, The Scotsman

A love story that captures the real-life cut and thrust of an affair that feels like it s never going to blossom into a full romance --Independent

Book Description:

A brilliant novel about money and love, on betting everything on a single throw, by an award-winning young writers, chosen as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2013.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0099552779
• ISBN 13: 9780099552772
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272