The Escape
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Published:5th Aug '10
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Remarkable second novel by the author of the highly-praised and controversial Politics.
'The more I knew of Haffner,' writes Adam Thirlwell in The Escape, 'the more real he became, this was true. And, simultaneously, Haffner disappeared.'
In a forgotten spa town snug in the Alps, at the end of the twentieth century, Haffner is seeking a cure, more women, and a villa that belonged to his late wife.
'The more I knew of Haffner,' writes Adam Thirlwell in The Escape, 'the more real he became, this was true. And, simultaneously, Haffner disappeared.'
In a forgotten spa town snug in the Alps, at the end of the twentieth century, Haffner is seeking a cure, more women, and a villa that belonged to his late wife.
But really he is trying to escape: from his family, his lovers, his history, his entire Haffnerian condition.
For Haffner is 78.
Haffner, in other words, is too old to be grown up.
A witty, irreverant and elegaic new novel...Haffner is a Quixote of our time * New York Times Book Review *
A novel where the humour is melancholic, the melancholy mischievous and the talent startling -- Milan Kundera
In The Escape, you can practically see Bellow’s Augie March, Roth’s Mickey Sabbath and Martin Amis’s John Self applauding, ghost-like, from the margins... The novel fizzes with intelligence, verbal skill and humour -- Simon Baker * Observer *
Beautifully written, poignant and clever... Thirlwell has a genuinely unique insight into humankind * The Times *
The Escape is one of the best British novels I’ve read this year for one reason; Thirlwell’s prose. At once effervescent and elegant, his narrative voice lifts the novel’s lecherous comedy beyond the sublunary lovers’ antics into a more rarefied sphere -- Sarah Churchwell * Guardian *
ISBN: 9780099539834
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 21mm
Weight: 239g
336 pages