ABSOLUTE TRUTHS - Softcover

Howatch

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006496881 ISBN 13: 9780006496885

Publisher: Harper, 2010

Synopsis

Reissue of the author’s most famous and well-loved work, the Starbridge series, six self-contained yet interconnected novels that explore the history of the Church of England through the 20th century.

Charles Ashworth is privileged, pampered and pleased with himself. As Bishop of Starbridge in 1965 he 'purrs along as effortlessly as a well-tuned Rolls-Royce' while he proclaims his famous 'absolute truths' to a society which he sees - with rage and revulsion - as increasingly immoral and disordered. But then a catastrophe tears his life apart and confronts him with the real absolute truths, truths which so shatter him that he finds himself stripped of his pride and struggling for survival.
Grappling with the revelation that he has failed his wife, short-changed one son and distorted the personality of the other, Charles's guilt steadily drives him into the immoral and disordered life he has condemned so violently in others. Fighting against the threat of complete breakdown, he then embarks on a quest to rebuild not only his private life but his professional life, a quest which leads him to a final battle with his old enemy Dean Aysgarth in the shadow of Starbridge Cathedral.

About this title

Review:

'I read on, wriggling on a hypnotic storyteller's hook' Daily Telegraph

'Every bit as good as Trollope' Liverpool Echo

'A tour de force... Susan Howatch has been likened to a twentieth-century version of Trollope. To make such a comparison is to fail to do her justice' Church of England Newspaper

'Howatch writes thrillers of the heart and mind ... everything in a Howatch novel cuts close to the bone and is of vital concern' New Woman

'Riveting... extremely moving and often very funny... She is a deft storyteller, and her writing has depth, grace and pace' Sunday Times

'She is writing for anyone who can recognise that mysterious gift of the true storyteller' Daily Telegraph

'One of the most original novelists writing today' Cosmopolitan

'The best female writer in Britain today' Birmingham Evening Mail

From the Back Cover:

1968, with the swinging sixties sliding into decadence, finds Nicholas Darrow wrestling with overwhelming personal problems: How can he bring himself to marry his fiancee, Rosalind, when he is unable to avoid promiscuity? How can he become a priest when he finds it so difficult to live as one? And how can he break his dangerous dependence on his father Jon, whose psychic gifts he shares?

It is at this crucial moment in his life that Nick becomes involved in the mystery surrounding his friend, Christian Aysgarth. Gradually, he realises that discovering the truth about this enigmatic and complex man will unlock the answers to his own baffling problems. However, his journey through darkness into the light reverses all the old certainties and, in his experiments with his psychic powers, Nick risks even his own life and sanity.

"She is writing for anyone who can recognise that mysterious gift of the true storyteller."
DAILY TELEGRAPH

"Utterly addictive"
JILLY COOPER

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0006496881
• ISBN 13: 9780006496885
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 672