Author:Rose Tremain
From the author of The Gustav Sonata
A stunning collection of stories: wide-reaching in subject and setting, each beautifully evoked and brilliantly imagined.
Renowned opera singer Antonio Mollini begins construction on what he hopes will be the most beautiful garden in Italy, unaware that its development will have tragic consequence for both him, and his series of lovers. Elsewhere, a farmer's son has high hopes for his inheritance, a young girl dreams of following in the footsteps of a famous arsonist, and the pressure of the annual Gardening Cup exerts a heavy toll on seventeen-year-old Dougie.
Over a million Rose Tremain books sold
‘A writer of exceptional talent ... Tremain is a writer who understands every emotion’ Independent I
‘There are few writers out there with the dexterity or emotional intelligence to rival that of the great Rose Tremain’ Irish Times
‘Tremain has the painterly genius of an Old Master, and she uses it to stunning effect’ The Times
‘Rose Tremain is one of the very finest British novelists’ Salman Rushdie
‘Tremain is a writer of exemplary vision and particularity. The fictional world is rendered with extraordinary vividness’ Marcel Theroux, Guardian
Talented to the point of rare originality
—— IndependentAn expert at conveying the kind of apparently inconsequential detail that might be the moment of definition in someone's life
—— Times Literary SupplementThe stories have a strange, fairy-tale quality: the simple, beautiful prose, the sense of inevitability, the use of allusion and metaphor to suggest undercurrents of disturbing portent
—— Selina Hastings , Daily TelegraphHer talent is at its best
—— Susan HillA quintessentially English writer - her work has a charm and finesse, a civilised irony
—— GuardianA serious, moving, funny, dark collection
—— Scotland on SundayKNOCKEMSTIFF by Donald Ray Pollock is the best book I have ever read. This is the America they don't let you see on television. This is real literature. It will be read for centuries
—— Michael GuinzburgIt's as if you put David Lynch, Denis Johnson, and a drunk speed freak body builder into a blender. The result are some of the darkest, wildest, most messed up, hilarious stories I've ever read. Knockemstiff is really something
—— Willy VlautinThis short story collection gives those new to her oeuvre a chance to delve into gems from her past...precociously vibrant
—— Melissa McClements , Financial Times