Jonathan Buckley (1) (1956–)
Teoksen The Rough Guide to Tuscany & Umbria tekijä
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Tietoja tekijästä
Jonathan Buckley is the author of the short story Briar Road which won the BBC National Short Story Award 2015 with a monetary award of $31,890. (Bowker Author Biography)
Tekijän teokset
The Real Guide: Venice 1 kappale
Briar Road 1 kappale
Associated Works
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
Jäseniä
Kirja-arvosteluja
Palkinnot
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Tilastot
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- 491
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- #50,320
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- 93
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The text consists of a series of interviews over five sessions. We are reading a transcript of a recording, marked with [pauses], and occasional lacunae that are marked [indistinct]. These gaps in the narrative could be when the speaker has turned away from the microphone, and/or they could be prompts from the interviewer.
The narrator is a gardener who works for a mega-wealthy entrepreneur and art collector who has mysteriously disappeared. It's not clear how long ago this disappearance occurred, and at first the circumstances and purpose of the interview are not clear either. A police interview perhaps? or an interview with a journalist? It turns out to be an interview with a scriptwriter, so someone wants to make a film or a doco...
So, the unnamed gardener tells what she knows about Curtis. She's gossipy, and she obviously draws on gossip that she's heard from other members of the staff. The mansion is described as a 'palace' so the staff is large, but our informant is class-conscious too and though she is at pains to stress that Curtis isn't like other rich people, she might well be labelling it a 'palace' to make a point. She is an unreliable narrator. But maybe uber-rich people can buy privately owned palaces in Scotland?
Over the course of the book we learn that Curtis was an adoptee abandoned by his mother, but that after a couple of bad placements, he fell on his feet with lovely people who cared for him like their own. He made his money in the fashion industry thanks in part to his first wife, Lily, who died. There have been women since then, but which ones were lovers is open to our narrator's conjectures. There are children and grandchildren, and these all provide an opportunity for the narrator to reminisce, ponder, speculate and cast aspersions. Like the structures on the cover of the book, these people are seen from all different angles as she reports from her sources — Asil the chauffeur, Connie the cook, Harry with an axe to grind and so on.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/02/27/tell-by-jonathan-buckley/… (lisätietoja)