A man attempts to escape a recent loss while confronting a trauma from a long lost summer, in John Banville’s haunting and evocative novel.
Secrets and reality both unravel in John Banville’s portrait of a dark and disturbed relationship, which is doomed to disaster from the very start.
Axel Vander, distinguished intellectual and elderly academic, is not the man he seems. When a letter arrives out of the blue, threatening to unveil his secrets - and carefully concealed identity - Vander travels to Turin to meet its author. There, muddled by age and alcohol, unable always to distinguish fact from fiction, Vander comes face to face with the woman who has the knowledge to unmask him.
John Banville
About the Author
John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland. His novel The Sea won the 2005 Booker Prize.Other nominated books by John Banville
John Banville’s novel is the compelling confession of an unlikely killer. To what extent is this darkly poetic admission of guilt actually ‘true’?