Singapore, 1939: life on the eve of World War II just isn't what it used to be for Walter Blackett, head of British Singapore's oldest and most powerful firm. No matter how forcefully the police break one strike, the natives go on strike somewhere else. His daughter keeps entangling herself with the most unsuitable beaus, while her intended match, the son of Blackett's partner, is an idealistic sympathizer with the League of Nations and a vegetarian. Business may be booming--what with the war in Europe, the Allies are desperate for rubber and helpless to resist Blackett's price-fixing and market manipulation--but something is wrong. No one suspects that the world of the British Empire, of fixed boundaries between classes and nations, is about to come to a terrible end.
A love story and a war story, a tragicomic tale of a city under siege and a dying way of life, The Singapore Grip completes the "Empire Trilogy" that began with Troubles and the Booker prize-winning Siege of Krishnapur.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
"A brilliant, complex, richly absurd and melancholy monument to the follies and splendours of Empire."
-- Hilary Spurling
"No writer has swallowed all of Singapore, from its stately colonial bungalows to its once opium-infested slums, with the verve and wit of the late J.G. Farrell, whose 1978 saga The Singapore Grip remains the great Singapore novel...Farrell's pungent aroma still fleetingly hovers over today's city...With his gentle wit Farrell captures the soul of Singapore: a polyglot Asian port, still partly under the sleepy sway of its British colonial past, and still lurching toward an uncertain future with a furious, irresistible energy."
--Time Magazine
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # ABE-1702853012853
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9781590171363
Book Description Condition: New. Brand New. Seller Inventory # 1590171365
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # newMercantile_1590171365
Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 1590171365-2-1
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_1590171365
Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-1590171365-new
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Buy for Great customer experience. Seller Inventory # GoldenDragon1590171365
Book Description Condition: New. pp. x + 572, 1 Map. Seller Inventory # 261229248
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard1590171365