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Up against the night

Frank McAllister has become wealthy in England, where he has lived for thirty years. He has a house in Notting Hill, a house in the New Forest, and a house near Cape Town. But more and more he feels alienated in England. As the book opens, he is preparing to go to South Africa with his lover, Nellie...

Full description

Main Author: Cartwright, Justin (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
Published: New York ; London ; Oxford ; New Delhi ; Sydney : Bloomsbury, 2015.
Subjects:
Fathers and daughters > Fiction.
South Africa > Fiction.
Summary: Frank McAllister has become wealthy in England, where he has lived for thirty years. He has a house in Notting Hill, a house in the New Forest, and a house near Cape Town. But more and more he feels alienated in England. As the book opens, he is preparing to go to South Africa with his lover, Nellie. He is also waiting anxiously for his daughter, Lucinda, to arrive from California, where she has been in rehab. Frank is a descendant of the Boer leader, Piet Retief, who was murdered by the Zulu king Dingane, along with all his followers, in 1838. He has been an icon of Afrikaners ever since. Frank's Afrikaner cousin, Jaco, has become moderately famous on YouTube for having faced down a huge white shark. He is now in America, where he has joined the Scientologists. His chaotic and violent life spills over on to Frank. He is drawn into a world of violence and delusion that is to threaten the family. Justin Cartwright possesses that rarest of novelist's skills - the ability to create fiction which is intensely serious but which also vividly encompasses the absurdity and comedy of life. 'Up against the night' is a subtle, brilliant novel about South Africa, its beautiful, superbly evoked landscape, its violent past and its uncertain present. Justin Cartwright is a descendant of Piet Retief.
Physical Description: 241 pages ; 25 cm
ISBN: 163286018X
9781632860187
9781408858226 (HB)
1408858223 (HB)
Author Notes: Justin Cartwright was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1945. He graduated from Trinity College, Oxford. Before becoming an author, he worked in advertising and in film and documentary directing. He wrote 13 novels including Interior, Look at It This Way, White Lightning, Half in Love, The Promise of Happiness, The Song Before It Is Sung, To Heaven by Water, Other People's Money, Lion Heart, and Up Against the Night. In Every Face I Meet won a Commonwealth Writers Prize and Leading the Cheers won the Whitbread Novel Award. He also wrote three non-fiction books entitled Not Yet Home, This Secret Garden, and Oxford Revisited. He died on December 3, 2018 at the age of 73.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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