Uncle Rudolf - Hardcover

Bailey, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841157589 ISBN 13: 9781841157580

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2002

Synopsis

The haunting new novel from Paul Bailey, whose work has been short-listed twice for the Booker prize.

At the age of 70, Andrew Peters suddenly finds himself speaking in the language he has not used since childhood, when he came to live with his doting Uncle Rudolf . Rudolf transformed Andrew's world. Looking back across the years, Andrew remembers the captivating man who rescued him in 1937 from a likely death in fascist Romania. A sublimely gifted lyric tenor, Rudolf’s talent had exiled him from his native land, leading him to Paris, Vienna and London, where he became a much-loved star in operetta. He turns all his hopes and sardonic humour upon Andrew, and the gauche child from a remote country town becomes what Rudolf wants him to be – an English gentleman.

Vivid, often hilarious stories of Rudolf's brilliant but blighted career and of his eccentric household are intertwined with the slow unfolding of the secrets that have shadowed Andrew's otherwise happy life. Told in matchless prose, this deeply moving novel captures a vanished epoch and a way of life with exquisite tact and restraint.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Bailey is the author of At the Jerusalem (1967) which won the Somerset Maugham Award,Trespasses (1970),A Distant Likeness (1973), Peter Smart’s Confessions (1977), shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Old Soldiers (1980), and Sugar Cane (1993). He was the first recipient of the E.M. Forster Award and won a George Orwell Prize for his essay ‘The Limitations of Despair’.

From the Back Cover

At the age of 70, Andrew Peters suddenly finds himself speaking in the language he has not used since childhood, when he came to live with his doting Uncle Rudolf. Rudolf transformed Andrew's world. Looking back across the years, Andrew remembers the captivating man who rescued him in 1937 from a likely death in facist Romania. A sublimely gifted lyric tenor, his talent exiled him from his native country, leading him to Paris, Vienna and London, where he became a much-loved star in operetta. Rudolf turns all his hopes and sardonic humour upon Andrew, and the gauche child from a remote country town becomes what Rudolf wants him to be – an English gentleman.

Andrew, spurred on by the prospect of senility, starts writing about his strange upbringing, only to discover in the process the true nature of his feelings. Vivid, often hilarious stories of Rudolf's brilliant but blighted career and of his eccentric household are intertwined with the slow unfolding of the secrets that have shadowed Andrew's otherwise happy life. Told in matchless prose, this deeply moving novel captures a vanished epoch and a way of life with exquisite tact and restraint.

On 'Kitty and Virgil':

"A book the depth and beauty of which it is hard to do justice in the language of criticism and dissection."
ALEX CLARK, 'TLS'

On 'Old Soldiers':

"'Old Soldiers' has taken root in my head. It's a spare, intense, elliptical novel, beautifully and cunningly set in a London which is at once drawn from Dickens and bang up to date."
JONATHAN RABAN, 'Sunday Times'

On 'Gabriel's Lament':
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

"A beautifully written and touching picture of loneliness and eccentric English family life."
'Sunday Telegraph'

On 'Peter Smart's Confessions':
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

"Rich in characters, situations, jokes and comic repartee. It's a fiendishly clever and funny book."
ANTHONY THWAITE, 'Observer'

Edition details

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1841157589
• ISBN 13: 9781841157580
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192