* WINNER OF A WHITBREAD NOVEL AWARD *
A rich portrayal of small-town life with wonderfully evoked characters and beautifully observed writing.
Dan Silas returns to America for his high school reunion where he makes some unexpected discoveries. His former girlfriend tells him that her daughter was his child and Dan's oldest friend has suffered a breakdown and now believes himself to be the reincarnation of an Indian chief. In an attempt to make sense of these disturbing facts, Dan digs further into their lives, with both tragic and comic results.
'A wonderfully observed novel which provides a rare outsider's glimpse of the quiet despair that lurks behind those bright, perfectly-formed American smiles' Literary Review
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Born in South Africa, Justin Cartwright lived in Britain after studying at Trinity College, Oxford. He worked in advertising and directed documentaries, films and television commercials, and wrote seventeen novels. They include the Booker-shortlisted In Every Face I Meet, the Whitbread Novel Award-winner Leading the Cheers, the acclaimed White Lightning, shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Novel Award, The Promise of Happiness, winner of the 2005 Hawthornden Prize, The Song Before It Is Sung, To Heaven By Water, Other People's Money, Lion Heart and Up Against the Night. His novel Look At It This Way was made into a three-part drama by the BBC in 1992, and he also published three works of non-fiction. He died in December 2018.
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Paperback. Condition: Very Good. * WINNER OF A WHITBREAD NOVEL AWARD * A rich portrayal of small-town life with wonderfully evoked characters and beautifully observed writing. Dan Silas returns to America for his high school reunion where he makes some unexpected discoveries. His former girlfriend tells him that her daughter was his child and Dan's oldest friend has suffered a breakdown and now believes himself to be the reincarnation of an Indian chief. In an attempt to make sense of these disturbing facts, Dan digs further into their lives, with both tragic and comic results. 'A wonderfully observed novel which provides a rare outsider's glimpse of the quiet despair that lurks behind those bright, perfectly-formed American smiles' Literary Review. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR003391809
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Paperback. Condition: Good. Standard. Outline:- For travelers history has a way of appearing crystallized. It`s all too easy when visiting someone else`s country to discern the links between the ideas of the past and the way people live now. And in Justin Cartwright`s Leading the Cheers London ad man Dan Silas is happy to make such links. British by birth he attended high school briefly in Michigan then returned to his native soil. Now his class has asked him to be the keynote speaker at their 30th reunion. Dan is in just the right mood to make such a trip; he`s recently sold his wildly successful agency and broken up with his young girlfriend. "What carried me far in advertising was a glib up-to-dateness and its roots obviously go back a long way. It is this cheapness which I am endeavouring to slough off. I will avail myself without cynicism of the offer to buy a commemorative brick from the old high school." For Dan America has come to represent a kind of lost earnest innocence: you can practically hear the fife-and-drum music in the background as he rolls into town for the reunion. No less rosy are his memories of his best friend Gary and his high-school sweetheart Gloria with whom he first coupled on Thomas Jefferson`s bed at Monticello on a class field trip. "In my memory Gloria and Monticello are for ever joined." But now she claims he fathered a daughter that fateful afternoon a daughter who`s been murdered by a serial killer. Meanwhile Gary has gone off the deep end convinced he`s an Ojibway Indian and leading ceremonies in a tipi in his mom`s backyard. Dan`s attempt to reconcile his Edenic memories with the bitter realities wrought by 30 years of history yield a singularly woeful comic novel. At times Justin Cartwright`s narrative seems filigreed with ideas and ironies; at other times it seems concerned quite simply with one man who learns that his "version of what goes on is certainly faulty." --Claire Dederer After Dan Silas`s advertising company is bought out his invitation to his thirty-year high school reunion arrives with perfect timing and he leaves London to return to the small Michigan town he has not seen since 1968. With wit humor and compassion Whitbread Award-winner and Booker Prize-nominee Justin Cartwright takes Dan through the mounting stages of both culture shock and mid-life crisis. Back in Michigan he discovers his best friend now believes he is a reincarnated Shawnee Indian and his high school sweetheart claims she had a daughter by him - who has just been murdered by the Hollybush`s new celebrity a small-town serial killer. With brilliantly evoked characters and crackling dialogue Leading the Cheers comically explores what people want out of life - and what they get instead. --> Genre: Literary Fiction Literary Works-> the publisher of this PAPERBACK book is Sceptre Publishers The date of this copy is 1999 booksalvation have grade it as Good and it will be shipped from our UK warehouse This book is from the Series. Shipping is Free for UK buyers and at a reasonable charge for buyer outside the UK. Book. Seller Inventory # 9780340637852AH8142
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