Being Dead

Being Dead PDF Author: Jim Crace
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 142998015X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
A National Book Critics Circle Awards Winner From the author of Quarantine comes Being Dead, Jim Crace's haunting novel about love, death, and the afterlife. Baritone Bay, mid-afternoon. A couple, naked, married almost thirty years, are lying murdered in the dunes. "Their bodies had expired, but anyone could tell--just look at them--that Joseph and Celice were still devoted. For while his hand was touching her, curved round her shin, the couple seemed to have achieved that peace the world denies, a period of grace, defying even murder. Anyone who found them there, so wickedly disfigured, would nevertheless be bound to see that something of their love had survived the death of cells. The corpses were surrendered to the weather and the earth, but they were still a man and wife, quietly resting; flesh on flesh; dead, but not departed yet."

Being Dead

Being Dead PDF Author: Jim Crace
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 142998015X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207

Get Book Here

Book Description
A National Book Critics Circle Awards Winner From the author of Quarantine comes Being Dead, Jim Crace's haunting novel about love, death, and the afterlife. Baritone Bay, mid-afternoon. A couple, naked, married almost thirty years, are lying murdered in the dunes. "Their bodies had expired, but anyone could tell--just look at them--that Joseph and Celice were still devoted. For while his hand was touching her, curved round her shin, the couple seemed to have achieved that peace the world denies, a period of grace, defying even murder. Anyone who found them there, so wickedly disfigured, would nevertheless be bound to see that something of their love had survived the death of cells. The corpses were surrendered to the weather and the earth, but they were still a man and wife, quietly resting; flesh on flesh; dead, but not departed yet."

Quarantine

Quarantine PDF Author: Jim Crace
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374706212
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Jim Crace's novel is the brilliantly imagined story of Christ's forty days in the wilderness, a tale of three men, two women, and a curious wanderer whose peculiar fate is transformed into legend. Dazzling, gritty, and utterly compelling, Quarantine is a work at once timeless and timely - a parable for the ages.

Harvest

Harvest PDF Author: Jim Crace
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1447242270
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
Winner of the 2015 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Winner of the 2014 James Tait Black Prize Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize Shortlisted for the 2013 Goldsmiths Prize Shortlisted for the 2014 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction As late summer steals in and the final pearls of barley are gleaned, a village comes under threat. A trio of outsiders - two men and a dangerously magnetic woman - arrives on the woodland borders triggering a series of events that will see Walter Thirsk's village unmade in just seven days: the harvest blackened by smoke and fear, cruel punishment meted out to the innocent, and allegations of witchcraft. But something even darker is at the heart of Walter's story, and he will be the only man left to tell it . . .

The Melody

The Melody PDF Author: Jim Crace
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1509841393
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
From the Man Booker shortlisted author of Harvest. Alfred Busi, famed in his town for his music and songs, is mourning the recent death of his wife and quietly living out his days in the large villa he has always called home. Then one night Busi is attacked by a creature he disturbs as it raids the contents of his larder. Busi is convinced that what assaulted him was no animal, but a child, ‘innocent and wild’, and his words fan the flames of old rumour – of an ancient race of people living in the bosk surrounding the town – and new controversy: the town’s paupers, the feral wastrels at its edges, must be dealt with. Once and for all. Lyrical and warm, intimate and epic, The Melody by Jim Crace tracks the few days that will see Busi and the town he loves altered irrevocably. This is a story about grief and ageing, about reputation and the loss of it, about love and music and the peculiar way myth seeps into real life. And it is a political novel too – a rallying cry to protect those we persecute. 'The Melody takes its place among his finest [novels] . . . an ecological fable for modern times' Guardian

The Pesthouse

The Pesthouse PDF Author: Jim Crace
Publisher: Anchor Canada
ISBN: 0385672411
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
During the years of America’s ascendancy, the great ships brought waves of immigrants to the promised land. In sight of the Statute of Liberty, the huddled masses disembarked in search of the American dream. In the imagined future, the great ships play a different role. In a work of outstanding originality, Jim Crace’s The Pesthouse envisions a future America in ruins and a reversal of history: desperate Americans seeking passage to the promised land of Europe. Crace’s future United States is a lawless wasteland. The economy collapses, industry ceases, and the remaining populace returns to subsistence farming. The only hope rests with reaching the east coast and obtaining passage by ship to Europe. Like many Americans, Franklin Lopez and his brother, Jackson, leave their farm to begin the long trek east. Within sight of their goal, Franklin is forced, by an enflamed knee, to stop. While Jackson continues forward, Franklin seeks rest in a seemingly abandoned stone building in a forest. Inside, Jackson discovers Margaret. Margaret is feverish with a deadly illness and is confined to the Pesthouse with little hope of recovery. Franklin should flee. Instead, he is drawn to Margaret and stays by her side while she sweats out the fever. After her recovery, Margaret joins Franklin on the journey east. This journey is fraught with danger. Rule-of-law no longer exists and the land is plagued by roaming bandits and slave traders. The threat of danger slowly draws Margaret and Franklin closer to each other. A bond of love begins to form. They also draw comfort from joining a group of like-minded pilgrims. The illusion of safety is soon shattered. While resting from a day of travel, the group is taken captive by mounted bandits. Franklin is taken as a slave. On account of her recent illness, Margaret is spared along with an elderly couple and a baby. Margaret must continue on without Franklin. A bewildered Margaret slowly pushes eastward with the elderly couple and the baby. She is eventually separated from them and must take sole responsibility for the baby. With hope fading, Margaret stumbles upon the refuge of the Ark; a religious community which provides food and shelter in exchange for denouncing all metal technologies. Margaret accepts the laws of the Ark and is allowed to enter with her baby. While safe, Margaret secretly hopes to be reunited with Franklin. Their paths cross again under tragic circumstances. The Ark is attacked by the same mounted bandits that enslaved Franklin. While the Ark is looted and the community massacred, Margaret and her baby escape. They are reunited with Franklin by chance following a slave uprising in the vicinity of the Ark. Narrowly escaping their pursuers, Franklin, Margaret and the baby continue the journey to the East coast. Upon finally reaching their destination, the dream is shattered. Margaret discovers there is no room for women with young children on the ships bound to Europe. There is no choice but to turn back. With the end of one dream a new one is born. Inspired by their growing love, Franklin and Margaret decide to return west, with the baby, as a family. Jim Crace concludes “going westward, they would go free.”

The Devil's Larder

The Devil's Larder PDF Author: Jim Crace
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429962364
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
A sumptuous, scintillating stew of sixty four short fictions about appetite, food, and the objects of our desire All great meals, it has been said, lead to discussions of either sex or death, and The Devil's Larder, in typical Cracean fashion, leads to both. Here are sixty four short fictions of at times Joycean beauty--about schoolgirls hunting for razor clams in the strand; or searching for soup-stones to take out the fishiness of fish but to preserve the flavor of the sea; or about a mother and daughter tasting food in one another's mouth to see if people really do taste things differently--and at other times, of Mephistophelean mischief: about the woman who seasoned her food with the remains of her cremated cat, and later, her husband, only to hear a voice singing from her stomach (you can't swallow grief, she was advised); or the restaurant known as "The Air & Light," the place to be in this small coastal town that serves as the backdrop for Crace's gastronomic flights of fancy, but where no food or beverage is actually served, though a 12 percent surcharge is imposed just for just sitting there and being seen. Food for thought in the best sense of the term, The Devil's Larder is another delectable work of fiction by a 2001 winner of The National Book Critics Circle Award.

Arcadia

Arcadia PDF Author: Jim Crace
Publisher: Anchor Canada
ISBN: 0385666918
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Victor, an eighty-year-old multimillionaire, surveys his empire from the remoteness of his cloud-capped penthouse. Expensively insulated from the outside world, he nonetheless finds that memories of his impoverished childhood will not be kept so easily at bay. Focusing on the one area of vitality and chaos that remains in the streets below him, he formulates a plan to leave a mark on the city – one as indelible and disruptive as the mark the city left on him.

Continent

Continent PDF Author: Jim Crace
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 033047376X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
‘Hard and actual in observation, clearly and richly imagined, remarkably original’ Guardian A novel in seven stories, Continent is an exploration of the cultures, communities and natural life of an entirely imaginary realm. Built on rich seams of myth and metaphor, this new, seventh continent is strange, atmospheric and yet not wholly a mirage, for its inhabitants are disarmingly familiar, known to us through their loves, their hopes and their struggles to make sense of life. On its first publication over twenty years ago, this spellbinding book marked the arrival of one of the most inventive minds at work in modern fiction. ‘Fuses folklore and political parable, moral fable and myth, into something rather original and also very modern’ The Times ‘Makes us see our own world more clearly . . . brilliant, provocative and delightful’ New York Times

The Gift of Stones

The Gift of Stones PDF Author: Jim Crace
Publisher: Anchor Canada
ISBN: 0385672403
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Crace’s second novel confirmed his status as a writer of great imagination and skill. Set at the twilight of the Stone Age, a young man elects himself the village storyteller, and hunts restlessly, far and wide, for inspiration. But the information he finds and the people he meets warn of the advent of a new age and the coming of a metal that will change their community’s life irrevocably.

Signals of Distress

Signals of Distress PDF Author: Jim Crace
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 9781447219439
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
November 1836, and Aylmer Smith is making the voyage from his London home to coastal Wherrytown to deliver bad news. Once there he becomes embroiled with the American crew of the Belle, torn from their ship by a fierce storm and left stranded to wreak havoc in the village. A Dickensian cast of characters and Jim Craceâe(tm)s characteristically poetic prose make for an extraordinary novel: a historical yet timeless exploration of clashing cultures, communication and technology, which sees Crace at his illuminating and expansive best.