C - Hardcover

McCarthy, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0307593339 ISBN 13: 9780307593337

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2010

Synopsis

C has been shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize.


The acclaimed author of Remainder, which Zadie Smith hailed as “one of the great English novels of the past ten years,”gives us his most spectacularly inventive novel yet.

Opening in England at the turn of the twentieth century, C is the story of a boy named Serge Carrefax, whose father spends his time experimenting with wireless communication while running a school for deaf children. Serge grows up amid the noise and silence with his brilliant but troubled older sister, Sophie: an intense sibling relationship that stays with him as he heads off into an equally troubled larger world.

After a fling with a nurse at a Bohemian spa, Serge serves in World War I as a radio operator for reconnaissance planes. When his plane is shot down, Serge is taken to a German prison camp, from which he escapes. Back in London, he’s recruited for a mission to Cairo on behalf of the shadowy Empire Wireless Chain. All of which eventually carries Serge to a fitful—and perhaps fateful—climax at the bottom of an Egyptian tomb . . .

Only a writer like Tom McCarthy could pull off a story with this effortless historical breadth, psychological insight, and postmodern originality.

About this title

Review:

"C inserts itself, slyly yet confidently, into the history of modernism. This is a genuinely exciting and spookily beautiful book, a new kind of joy" (Neel Mukherjee The Times)

"McCarthy is fast revealing himself as a master craftsman who is steering the contemporary novel towards exciting territories" (Observer)

"Skilfully realised, ambitious" (Christopher Taylor Guardian)

"An intelligent, ambitious book... A beautiful, accessible novel with a thrilling tale. This is one of the most brilliant books to have hit the shelves this year and McCarthy deserves high praise for an electric piece of writing which should be enjoyed as well as discussed" (Beth Jones Sunday Telegraph)

"C is formidably well assembled, and it is admirable for an unashamed literary ambition" (Peter Carty Independent on Sunday)

Book Description:

The author of 'one of the great English novels of the past ten years' moves to the next level, with a novel of thrilling action, imagination and ambition.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0307593339
• ISBN 13: 9780307593337
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 310