Times Fool Pa: A Tale in Verse - Softcover

Maxwell, Glyn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 061825756X ISBN 13: 9780618257560

Publisher: Mariner, 2002

Synopsis

Time's Fool tells the tale of Edmund Lea, a young man condemned to eternity alone until he determines how to lift the curse upon him. Edmund perpetually rides a phantom train -- except on Christmas Eve every seven years, when he is allowed to revisit his English hometown. He tries to break the spell by way of love, repentance, and death -- all in vain. Time passes, from 1970 to 2019, but Edmund remains seventeen, unable to age but watching the world grow older. Infused with a dark humor and an almost unbearable nostalgia, Time's Fool is a brilliant achievement, "classic yet hip, stylized yet inventive" (Scotsman).

About this title

About the Author

Glyn Maxwell is the author of several books of poetry, including The Sugar Mile. He is also a dramatist whose plays have been staged in New York, Edinburgh, and London. Among other honors, he has won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the E. M. Forster Prize. He was the poetry editor of the New Republic from 2001 to 2007.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Time's Fool

A Tale in VerseBy Glyn Maxwell

Mariner Books

Copyright © 2002 Glyn Maxwell
All right reserved.
ISBN: 061825756X

Excerpt

If I could have avoided what I had to tell
I gladly would have, but my day had dawned,
my voice had meaning: "Look. We are in Hell."

So my reflection said. I saw beyond
his shoulder the dark wind and the wild trees
waving to the sky, and a grey wound

of sky was where the darkness was least,
an opening or a closing where a hole
was yellow almost with a feel of west,

while the train groaned beneath us on the rail
and didn"t go. His smoke had crossed the floor
and voyaged through my hands. I"d been in Hell

for fourteen years. I rose to meet his stare
and held it, speaking: "This day, I believe,
I shall be briefly freed, because this hour

I"ve recognized my language, in yourself.
I"ve counted to this day and now it"s come.
For I was damned to this on Christmas Eve

and don"t know why, how long, or in whose name."
Glen turned his stare unchanging to the glass,
then turned it down. He sat there for a time,

but suddenly relaxed, and with a voice
from somewhere low and sad he asked my name...

Copyright 2000 © by Glyn Maxwell

Continues...

Excerpted from Time's Foolby Glyn Maxwell Copyright © 2002 by Glyn Maxwell. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Mariner
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 061825756X
• ISBN 13: 9780618257560
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 414