All is Song
Author(s): Samantha Harvey
It is late summer in London. Leonard Deppling returns to the capital from Scotland, where he has spent the past year nursing his dying father. Missing from the funeral was his older brother William, who lives in the north of the city with his wife and three young sons. Leonard is alone, and rootless - separated from his partner, and on an extended sabbatical from work. He moves in with William, hoping to renew their friendship, and to unite their now diminished family. William is a former lecturer and activist - serious, defiantly unworldly and forever questioning - a man who believes that happiness and freedom come only from knowing oneself, and who spends his life examining the extent of his ignorance: running informal meetings with ex-students. Leonard realises he must drop his expectations about the norms of brotherhood and return to the 'island of understanding' the two have inhabited for so long. Yet for all his attempts at closeness, Leonard comes to share his late father's anxieties about the eccentricities of William's behaviour. But it seems William has already set his own fate in motion, when news comes of a young student who has followed one of his arguments to a shocking conclusion. Rather than submit, William embraces the danger in the only way he knows how - a decision which threatens to consume not only himself, but his entire family. Set against the backdrop of tabloid frenzies and an escalating national crisis, "All Is Song" is a novel about filial and moral duty, and about the choice of questioning above conforming. It is a work of remarkable perception, intensity and resonance from one of Britain's most promising young writers.
General Information
- :
- : Vintage
- : Vintage
- : 0.21
- : 01 December 2012
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 February 2013
- : books
Other Specifications
- : Samantha Harvey
- : Paperback
- : 288
More About The Product
A fiercely intelligent and moving second novel from the author of the acclaimed The Wilderness.
[Harvey] explores the obligations and bonds of brotherhood Monocle This is a novel of ideas that also creates believable characters and explores complex relationships. Harvey's prose is graceful and unhurried, full of sharp observation and moments of subtly understated pathos. Its good to read the work of a writer who refuses to compromise or fit neatly into any given category, one brave enough to tackle such uncommercial subjects as muth, religion and the nature and value of contemplation. -- Carol Birch Guardian There's still something compelling in the way Harvey resists the easy and the obvious. The result is a novel of both depth and defiance -- Natasha Tripney Observer Harvey's slow, intense thoughtfulness feels positively Woolfean at times. She thinks deeply, and writes beautifully about these thoughts. -- Lucy Atkins Sunday Times A fine study of the nature and strength of family ties and the morality, or otherwise, of conforming where it matters -- Kate Saunders The Times
Samantha Harvey was born in England in 1975. She has lived in Ireland, New Zealand and Japan writing, travelling and teaching, and in recent years has co-founded an environmental charity alongside her writing. She lives in Bath and teaches on the MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. The Wilderness, her first novel, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2009.
