The Cinder Path - Hardcover

Cookson, Catherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688033393 ISBN 13: 9780688033392

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1978

Synopsis

You're a loser; you were born a loser.' Was that the whole truth about Charlie MacFell? Was he just the kind of nice chap who always takes the dirty end of the stick, lacking the inner strength to take a firm stand in life or love alike? In one of the most powerful and distinctive novels that this author has written, Catherine Cookson brilliantly portrays a man in search of himself and tells a story of exceptional dramatic force which carries the reader from the rural Northumberland of Edwardian times into the holocaust of the Western Front in the First World War. And at the root of the matter is the cinder path of Charlie's boyhood home; a place of harsh associations that would come to symbolise the struggle with destiny itself. 'No fan should be without it' Good Book Guide.

About this title

About the Author

Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, whom she believed to be her older sister. She began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married Tom Cookson, a local grammar-school master. Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer - her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 - her readership quickly spread throughout the world, and her many best-selling novels established her as one of the most popular of contemporary women novelists. After receiving an OBE in 1985, Catherine Cookson was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1997. For many years she lived near Newcastle upon Tyne. She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday, in June 1998.

From the Back Cover

The cinder path which led from the Northumberland farmhouse would always symbolise defeat for Charlie MacFell. People saw him as a born loser, a nice chap who always got the dirty end of the stick. At the root of the matter were boyhood humiliations by his brutal father - but was that all there was to Charlie MacFell? Then an opportunity emerged for Charlie to display his inner strengths and integrity, and to give the lie to those who had thought him to be of no account...

The Cinder Path portrays a man in search of himself, and tells a story of exceptional dramatic force which carries the reader from the rural Northumberland of Edwardian times into the holocaust of the Western Front in the First World War.

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 1978
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0688033393
• ISBN 13: 9780688033392
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 244