The Absolutist A Novel by the Author of The Heart's Invisible Furies

by BOYNE, JOHN

• ISBN13: 9781590515525
• ISBN10: 1590515528
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-07-10
• Publisher: Other Press

Summary

It is September 1919: twenty-one-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver a package of letters to the sister of Will Bancroft, the man he fought alongside during the Great War. But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan's visit. He can no longer keep a secret and has finally found the courage to unburden himself of it. As Tristan recounts the horrific details of what to him became a senseless war, he also speaks of his friendship with Will--from their first meeting on the training grounds at Aldershot to their farewell in the trenches of northern France. The intensity of their bond brought Tristan happiness and self-discovery as well as confusion and unbearable pain. The Absolutistis a masterful tale of passion, jealousy, heroism, and betrayal set in one of the most gruesome trenches of France during World War I. This novel will keep readers on the edge of their seats until its most extraordinary and unexpected conclusion, and will stay with them long after they've turned the last page. Praise for The Absolutist: "Extraordinary...The narrative is by turns surprising and tragic in equal measure while its troubling conclusion will stay with readers long after they've closed the book." --Carlo Gebler "Powerful, poignant and beautifully written. This will become a classic war novel." -- The Bookseller "John Boyne brings a completely fresh eye to the most important stories. He is one of the great craftsmen in contemporary literature." --Colum McCann "A wonderful, sad, tender book that is going to have an enormous impact on everyone who reads it." --Colm Toibin "Political, personal, powerful...a fiercely interrogative novel that asks not just what it means to be a man but also what it means to be a human being in the extreme circumstances of war." -- Irish Times "(In) Boyne's fiction, there's a sense that people are fundamentally the sum of their traumas...Boyne's narrative grip is strong." -- Literary Review

Author Biography

John Boyne was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1971. He is the author of nine novels (seven for adults and two for children), including The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which was made into an award-winning film. The novel also won two Irish Book Awards, was short-listed for the British Book Award, reached the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list, and has sold more than five million copies. His novels are published in forty-five languages. He lives in Dublin. Please visit him at www.johnboyne.com

Excerpts

“Keep it together, Tristan,” he tells me quietly, putting a hand around my shoulder as his eyes search to make and hold a connection with my own, his fingers pressing tightly around my flesh, sending a current of electricity through me despite my grief; it’s only the second time he’s touched me since England—the first was when he helped to lift me off the floor of the deluged trench—and the only time he’s spoken to me since the boat.
   “Keep it together, yes? For all our sakes.”
   I step closer to him and he pats my arm in consolation, leaving his hand there longer than is necessary.
   “What did Rigby mean when he said he was sorry to hear about…well, he didn’t finish his   sentence.”
   “It doesn’t matter,” I say, moving forward in my grief to put my head down on his shoulder, and he pulls me to him for a moment, his hand at the back of my head, and I am almost certain that his lips brush the top of my hair but then Turner and Sergeant Clayton come into sight, the loud voice of the latter complaining about some new disaster, and we separate once again. I wipe the tears from my eyes and look at him but he’s turned away and my thoughts return to my oldest friend, dead like so many others. I wonder why in God’s name I ever went to look at Rich, Parks, and Denchley’s bodies when I could have been in my foxhole all this time, grabbing a few minutes’ sleep, and knowing nothing about any of this, nothing about home or Chiswick High Street, my mother, my father, Peter, or the whole bloody lot of them. “