Description
Book SynopsisGerard Woodward is the author of a number of novels, including
Nourishment and an acclaimed trilogy comprising:
August (shortlisted for the 2001 Whitbread First Novel Award),
I'll Go to Bed at Noon (shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize) and
A Curious Earth. He was born in London in 1961, and published several prize-winning collections of poetry before turning to fiction. His collection of poetry,
We Were Pedestrians, was shortlisted for the 2005 T.S.Eliot Prize. His most recent poetry collection,
Seacunny, was published in 2012. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.
Trade ReviewThis is a huge, complex novel, at turns both blackly funny and bleakly moving, driven by truly original characters, rich in obscure pieces of knowledge, evocative of a long-lost, little-known past, and always absorbing - in a word, a masterpiece. * Daily Mail *
A sprawling novel of war, betrayal, art and the truth of storytelling itself * Independent *
Tantalising . . . playful yet sombre . . . What impresses is how Woodward uses first-person narration to illuminate his protagonist's troubled psychology without direct statement . . . An elegy for a lost England and an exploration of repressed sexuality,
Vanishing is . . . the work of an intelligent author pursuing his own path. * Sunday Telegraph *
Clever, subtle, and rewarding . . . an ambitious investigation into the nature of truth . . . ingenious * Times Literary Supplement *
Such narrative breadth finely accommodates Mr Woodward's incisive prose: he negotiates the strange topographies of the past with a tender, childlike curiosity * Country Life *
A vividly drawn tale of war, art and sexuality * Independent *
Compelling . . .
Vanishing is a portrait of an artist as a young man, with a very unreliable artist constructing the narrative. . . .ambitious, rangy and unusual * New York Times *
