Out of the Line of Fire - Softcover

Mark William Henshaw

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140110259 ISBN 13: 9780140110258

Publisher: Penguin, 1988

Synopsis

THIS BOOK IS SET IN HEIDELBERG, GERMANY, AND CONCERNS THE LIFE OF WOLFI, A PRIDIGY AND A STUDENT OF PHILOSOPHY. WHEN WOLFI BEGINS RELATING DETAILS ABOUT HIS FAMILY THINGS ARE A LITTLE STRANGE FROM THE START - FROM HIS FTHER WHO IS PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GRAZ IN AUSTRIA TO HIS GRANDMOTHER WHO PAYS FOR HIS FIRST SEXUAL INITIATION WITH THE PROSTITUTE ANDREA. ALL, HOWEVER, IS NOT AS IT APPEARS AND GRADUALLY, AS THE NOVEL UNFOLDS, ONE BEGINS TO WONDER WHAT IN FACT IS FACT AND WHAT IN FICTION IS FICTION. THE READER IS LED THROUGH A STRANGE AND EROTIC MAZE, A MAZE WHICH QUESTIONS THE VERY NATURE OF HOW WE READ AND WHAT OUR CONCEPTIONS OF THE LITERARY IMAGINATION ARE ALL ABOUT UNTIL WE ARRIVE AT THE FINAL CATASTROPHIC TRUTH. IF EVER SUSAN SONTAG'S PLEA FOR AN EROTICS OF LITERATURE NEEDED AN ANSWER, THEN THIS IS IT.

About this title

Review

"A remarkable and brainy work of metafiction.""Kirkus" (starred review)
"

"A remarkable and brainy work of metafiction."--Kirkus (starred review)

About the Author

Mark Henshaw has lived in France, Germany, Yugoslavia and the United States. He currently lives in Canberra. OUT OF THE LINE OF FIRE won the FAW Barbara Ramsden Award and the NBC New Writers Award on first publication in 1988. It was also shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Age Book of the Year Award. It was one of the biggest selling Australian literary novels of the decade, and is being republished in the Text Classics series.
In 1989 Mark was awarded a Commonwealth Literary Fellowship, and in 1994 he won the ACT Literary Award. Under the pseudonym J. M. Calder, in collaboration with John Clanchy, he has written two crime novels, If God Sleeps (1996) and And Hope to Die (2007). His work has been widely translated. For many years he was a Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Australia. He recently returned to writing fiction full-time. His most recent book is THE SNOW KIMONO.

Stephen Romei is a journalist, writer and critic. He is literary editor of The Australian newspaper, and former editor of the Australian Literary Review.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140110259
• ISBN 13: 9780140110258
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216