The Underground Man - Hardcover

Jackson, Mick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0330349554 ISBN 13: 9780330349550

Publisher: Picador, 1997

Synopsis

The eccentric Fifth Duke of Portland built a series of tunnels beneath his home, devised a series of dumb waiters to carry him around the vast house, and gave each of his labourers a donkey and an umbrella. This is a fictional account of his last months.

About this title

Review:

Mick Jackson makes films. It's no surprise, then, that his first novel, The Underground Man, should be so economically told, the action evoking a mise en scène. The novel takes the form of journal entries interspersed with eyewitness accounts from servants and neighbours. The "Underground Man" portrayed in the novel, William John Cavendish Bentinck-Scott, the Duke of Portland and a resident of Nottinghamshire, is mightily eccentric; the man was real (1800-1879), as was his eccentricity. Historical fact: the Duke commissioned eight tunnels on his estate. Present-day fact: if you walk the estate today, you see the skylights--2ft in diameter and 4in thick. But why did he build them?

In the last few days of the Duke's life, eccentricity burgeons and madness follows. The reader learns that his odd view of the world was shaped by early tragedy, the full truth of which is withheld until the last few pages.

The Underground Man is that most delectable blend of fact and fiction, one in which the intriguing details of a real life are richly explored through imagination.

Review:

"'Quite simply, astonishing.' Observer"

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0330349554
• ISBN 13: 9780330349550
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272