The Navigation Log - Softcover

Corrick, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375760539 ISBN 13: 9780375760532

Publisher: Random House Inc, 2004

Synopsis

Follows the life and times of identical twin brothers Tom and William, born at the end of World War I in 1918 as they take divergent paths at the world moves toward a Second World War--Tom, fascinated by airplanes, who becomes a Spitfire pilot, and William, a burgeoning poet who becomes a schoolteacher--until their lives converge once again at Canterbury Cathedral. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

A graduate of the creative-writing M.A. program at the University of East Anglia, Martin Corrick was formerly a lecturer at the University of Southampton in England. Now a full-time writer, he lives in Gloucestershire.


From the Hardcover edition.

From the Inside Flap

Milly dipped a pen in the bottle of India ink and wrote Tom on the label. She looked at the babies. They moved their arms and legs and made small sounds. Quickly she reached out and tied the label around one of their ankles. The child kicked his legs jerkily and the label fluttered. You re Tom, Milly said. She looked at the other child. And you re William.

A sweeping saga of brothers shaped by the chaos and danger of two world wars, The Navigation Log follows Tom and William, identical twins born as the church bells ring out the armistice of 1918. Largely ignored by their preoccupied mother and adulterous father, the brothers share a close bond through their rambunctious boyhood, even as Tom becomes obsessed with airplanes while William, a burgeoning poet, is drawn to his own internal flights of fancy.

By the time the Second World War casts its shadow across England, the boys have largely gone their separate ways. Tom is a Spitfire pilot, entangled in the romantic pursuit of a tempestuous female flier, and William is a teacher at an unorthodox elementary school. The war intensifies, and so do the brothers differences: As Tom patrols the skies, dogfighting high above the coast of Kent, William accompanies his headmaster, students, and new wife in a lunatic pilgrimage across the bomb-strewn countryside below. It is only when they separately approach the majestic Canterbury Cathedral that the twins paths explosively converge one last, unforgettable time.

Marking the debut of a masterly storyteller, The Navigation Log brilliantly conjures a vanished Britain with affection, humor, and lyricism that comes close to elegy.


From the Hardcover edition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Inc
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375760539
• ISBN 13: 9780375760532
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 292