Items related to The Only Story: A Novel
From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending, an achingly profound love story between a young man on the cusp of adulthood and a woman whose life is gradually moving in the opposite direction.
Most of us have only one story to tell. I don't mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there's only one that matters, only one finally worth telling. This is mine.
It is the early 1960s, in a staid suburb fifteen miles south of London. Paul, home from university for the holidays, is urged by his mother to join the tennis club. At the mixed doubles tournament he is partnered with Mrs. Susan Macleod: she's more than twice his age, and the married mother of two nearly grown-up daughters. Soon Paul and Susan embark on an unconventional affair, despite the disapproval of Paul's parents and the seething resentment of Susan's husband.
First love has lifelong consequences, but Paul doesn't know anything about that at nineteen. But as he grows older, the demands placed on Paul by love become far greater than he could possibly have foreseen.
Wryly observant and devastatingly tender, The Only Story is a profound, contemplative novel by one of fiction's greatest mappers of the human heart.
Most of us have only one story to tell. I don't mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there's only one that matters, only one finally worth telling. This is mine.
It is the early 1960s, in a staid suburb fifteen miles south of London. Paul, home from university for the holidays, is urged by his mother to join the tennis club. At the mixed doubles tournament he is partnered with Mrs. Susan Macleod: she's more than twice his age, and the married mother of two nearly grown-up daughters. Soon Paul and Susan embark on an unconventional affair, despite the disapproval of Paul's parents and the seething resentment of Susan's husband.
First love has lifelong consequences, but Paul doesn't know anything about that at nineteen. But as he grows older, the demands placed on Paul by love become far greater than he could possibly have foreseen.
Wryly observant and devastatingly tender, The Only Story is a profound, contemplative novel by one of fiction's greatest mappers of the human heart.
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About the Author:
JULIAN BARNES is the author of twenty-one previous books, for which he has received the Man Booker Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the David Cohen Prize for Literature, and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; the French Prix Medicis and Prix Femina; the Austrian State Prize for European Literature; and in 2004 he was named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages. He lives in London.
Review:
“[Barnes] returns to the themes of his first novel in this story, of an affair told from two vantage points, with captivating results. . . . The ending is quietly breathtaking, evidence of the subterranean magic that’s wrought by those seemingly austere sentences.” —Alex Preston, The Guardian
“Immensely powerful.” —Alex Clark, New Statesman
“Mr. Barnes is a master of the novel that unfolds cleanly before the reader and yet interrogates itself as it is told.” —Jonathan Cape, The Economist
“[The Only Story] is a novel that quietly sinks its hooks into the reader and refuses to let go. . . . As a feat of narrative control it shows a novelist at the height of his powers. As an exploration of whether love is indeed ‘the only story,’ and if so whether that word ‘only’ may reveal itself to mean miserably restrictive rather than happily unique, it is quietly devastating.” —Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Times
“[B]eautifully succinct. . . . This is not an easy story. . . . Told with particular heartbreak, The Only Story allows us to consider exuberance and its partner in crime, grief. In this work, Barnes forces us to reflect on the very essence of what makes a love story. Of course, he raises more questions than he answers but, surely, this is his gift to us. The Only Story will lead you to ruminate, pleasurably. Truly.” —Chris Gordon, Readings (Australia)
“Heartfelt, honest and unflinching, The Only Story isn’t your typical happily-ever-after tome, but it will get you thinking about love, loss and the state of the heart.” —Canadian Living
“Immensely powerful.” —Alex Clark, New Statesman
“Mr. Barnes is a master of the novel that unfolds cleanly before the reader and yet interrogates itself as it is told.” —Jonathan Cape, The Economist
“[The Only Story] is a novel that quietly sinks its hooks into the reader and refuses to let go. . . . As a feat of narrative control it shows a novelist at the height of his powers. As an exploration of whether love is indeed ‘the only story,’ and if so whether that word ‘only’ may reveal itself to mean miserably restrictive rather than happily unique, it is quietly devastating.” —Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Times
“[B]eautifully succinct. . . . This is not an easy story. . . . Told with particular heartbreak, The Only Story allows us to consider exuberance and its partner in crime, grief. In this work, Barnes forces us to reflect on the very essence of what makes a love story. Of course, he raises more questions than he answers but, surely, this is his gift to us. The Only Story will lead you to ruminate, pleasurably. Truly.” —Chris Gordon, Readings (Australia)
“Heartfelt, honest and unflinching, The Only Story isn’t your typical happily-ever-after tome, but it will get you thinking about love, loss and the state of the heart.” —Canadian Living
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- PublisherRandom House Canada
- Publication date2018
- ISBN 10 0735274738
- ISBN 13 9780735274730
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages272
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The Only Story: A Novel
Published by
Random House Canada
(2018)
ISBN 10: 0735274738
ISBN 13: 9780735274730
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