Hide - Softcover

Griffin, Matthew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408867095 ISBN 13: 9781408867099

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016

Synopsis

WINNNER OF THE CROOK'S CORNER BOOK PRIZE 2016
'This is a great love story' Edmund White, author of A Boy's Own Story

Wendell Wilson, a taxidermist, and Frank Clifton, a veteran, meet after the Second World War. But, in this declining textile town in a southern US state, their love holds real danger. Severing nearly all ties with the rest of the world, they carve out a home for themselves on the outskirts of town. For decades, their routine of self-reliant domesticity - Wendell's cooking, Frank's care for a yard no one sees, and the vicarious drama of courtroom TV - seems to protect them.

But when Wendell finds Frank lying motionless outside at the age of eighty-three, their carefully crafted life together begins to unravel. As Frank's memory and physical strength deteriorate, Wendell struggles in vain to hold on to the man he once knew. Faced with giving care beyond his capacity, he must come to terms with the consequences of half a century in seclusion: the different lives they might have lived - and the impending, inexorable loss of the one they had.

About this title

Review

Tender, restrained, Hide is the freshly imagined story of a gay male couple who decide to give up the world -friends, family, career - in order to live out their forbidden love in the decades before gay liberation. This is a great love story (Edmund White, author of A Boy's Own Story)

Unconventional and entirely convincing . It's about the way lives and relationships are formed and deformed, sometimes in extreme ways, by repression and the terror of exposure. It's part love story, part horror show . The book's most convincing scenes offer a very dark vision: like much else in human life, they argue, marriage is hell (Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You)

Graceful and understated (New York Times Book Review)

Heartbreaking, but also funny . Hide is dark and deep - almost the proverbial assured debut. I finished it in tears, impatient to see the development of such a talented writer **** (Sofia Laing, Daily Telegraph)

Past and present intercut in this tender, exquisitely observed love story that demonstrates the sacrifices made in the name of commitment (Fanny Blake, Daily Mail)

One of the best debut novels we've had the pleasure to read this year . A profoundly compassionate book about how we administer to those we love, the tender acrimony of intimacy and facing loss in a world dominated by threat. The story is understated, poignant, beautifully observed and lingers with you long after you've reluctantly read the final page (Attitude)

A deliberately paced, poignant story of two men in love against all the odds . A remarkable novel (Independent)

An extraordinary, subtle, unsettling book. It's a daring, searching, powerful piece of work. He never puts a foot wrong. Those two men, their histories, their difference and the passion that held them loom off the page . I admired the relentless power of this writing ... Ferocious, unsentimental and masterful (Patricia Duncker, author of Hallucinating Foucault)

A tough, thoughtful story beautifully told (Eithne Farry, Sunday Express)

A masterful novel. Every page aches with life (Gail Godwin, author of The Good Husband)

Book Description

The story of a hidden life, the story of a secret love. Moving from the end of the Second World War to the present day, a breathtaking debut novel about the decades-long relationship between a gay couple

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1408867095
• ISBN 13: 9781408867099
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272