Clay - Rilegato

Harrison, Melissa

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 140882602X ISBN 13: 9781408826027

Casa editrice: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013

Riassunto

A boy creeps down from a high-rise block in the half-light of dawn to see the neat prints left by a fox on the frosty grass. He is TC, eight years old and skipping school to spend his time exploring the city's waste ground and long-forgotten wild corners. At school and at home he is barely missed.

Sophia, seventy-eight and a half and still wearing her dear dead husband's shoes, looks out through her kitchen window at the little city park outside her flat, its grassy acres grimy and litter-blown, but to her eyes beautiful. She is writing her weekly letter to her granddaughter Daisy, whose privileged upbringing means she exists in a different world to that of TC, even though they live less than a mile apart.

Jozef spends his days clearing houses and works night shifts at the local takeaway, but he is unable to forget the farm he left behind in Poland, the woods and fields he grew up with still a part of him, although he is a thousand miles away. When he meets TC in the little park one night he finds a kindred spirit, despite the forty years between them: both lonely, both looking for something, both lost.

A lyrical debut novel about innocence and experience, class and consumerism, Clay captures the delicate balance of life in the city, between young and old, between nature and development, between recklessness and caution.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

A gently-evoked urban tragedy - and the most powerful and original debut novel I've read for years (A N Wilson, Readers Digest)

The way Harrison weaves the threads of her story together has echoes of John Lancaster's much-praised recent novel Capital ... Harrison has a gift too for exploring human bonds ... It is in the descriptive passages that Harrison's lyrical style shines brightest ... Clay is an assured debut novel, that reads like the work of a much more experienced author. Expect great things of Harrison (Evening Standard)

It's no surprise to learn that Melissa Harrison, the award-winning author of this thoughtful first novel, is also a photographer. Her strong visual sense is reflected in the sharply focused descriptions of the changing seasons which form the backdrop to a story of bonds created across national and generational divides ... An insightful study of common humanity and unintended inhumanity (Daily Mail)

Melissa Harrison draws on the urban pastoral style of writers such as Robert Macfarlane ... Her season-by-season chronicle of human deeds against the changing backdrop of plant and animal life conjures up the Shepherd's Calendars of poets such as Spenser and Clare, and a bucolic tradition of rural verse that stretches back into antiquity ... What never falters is the fierce and tender grace of her natural descriptions . As a nature-writer, Harrison has already, gloriously, blossomed; as a story-teller, she is still in bud. But every reader who cherishes even the scruffiest patch of urban greenery should rejoice in the 'beloved territory' she digs up in Clay (Boyd Tonkin, Independent)

There is a pleasing lack of overt symbolism ... In its loving yet unsentimental depictions of nature, the book is a great success. This is a story that unites people with their surroundings (Times Literary Supplement)

Deeply felt ... Reminiscent, at times, of Rose Tremain's The Road Home, this debut has also been praised by nature writer Robert Macfarlane, and Harrison writes beautifully of the changing seasons. Set against their gentle progress, Harrison's heartbreaking denouement, while predictable, is by contrast all the more shattering (The Lady)

Instantly beautiful in its calm and wise tone (Robert Macfarlane)

Harrison gives lovely expression to her vision of an ecosystem thrumming away beneath the grime of city life (Guardian)

Striking debut novel (Independent)

Clay addresses vital concerns about class and society in gorgeously precise prose . A novel like this only works when the author persuades you they can get into the heads of radically different characters with equal success - a challenge Harrison more than meets (Metro)

Descrizione del libro:

An intimate and captivating portrait of four people struggling with the concrete confines of city life by first-time novelist Melissa Harrison

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Data di pubblicazione: 2013
• ISBN 10: 140882602X
• ISBN 13: 9781408826027
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 272