Search results for ""Author Will Eaves""

An earthquake strikes at the heart of London, its epicenter a theatre where a lavish production of The Tempest has just opened. Thus the scene is set for Will Eaves’s gloriously deft tragicomedy of our time. Nothing To Be Afraid Of is both a lament for hope abandoned and innocence betrayed, and an exquisite comic pageant of Shakespearian vitality and compassion: an incidental theatrical history, across the twentieth century, of the art of pretence; of patience, trust and loyalty; of folly in youth and unforgivable old age. ‘Tender, playful and full of beautifully observed descriptions of growing up and growing old . . . with some terrific comic set-pieces the equal of anything in Waugh and Wodehouse. Now that’s good writing’ Daily Telegraph ‘In the case of his novel, Eaves has nothing to be afraid of. This deft, absorbing book more than confirms the promise of The Oversight. Eaves is a master of the dark arts of city fiction. He is to be read, relished and watched very closely’ Independent ‘Nothing To Be Afraid Of provides several coups de théâtre . . . [it] is a tragicomic tale of secrets, a drowned daughter, infidelity and mistaken identity . . . It is so clever, so apt, so right that you have no option but to read the novel with its built-in encore all over again. It seems even better the second time round’ Sunday Telegraph

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The Alldens live in a ramshackle house in suburban Bath. Don and Emily have four children: confident Liz, satirical Clive, shy Lotte, and Benjamin, the late arrival. Together they take the usual knocks, go to work, go abroad, go to university, go to pieces. Don and Emily stick it out, their strong marriage tested by experience and frustrated by love for Clive, the ardent boxing fan at odds with himself, their special child. But then ordinary is special, too, as the Alldens will discover thirty years later when Emily falls ill and her children come home to say goodbye. Their unforgettable story is an intimate record of survival that is clear-eyed, funny and deeply moving.

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A memoir by the 2019 Wellcome Prize winner Will Eaves that looks at the creation of eight piano pieces.What lies behind the creation of a piece of music? Does it spring fully formed from a composer's mind, or take shape in the recesses of the brain, revealing itself in stages over time? Is the creative act deliberate or happenstance? An inspired vision or the result of practice?Will Eaves, author and musician, shares his experience of writing eight new piano pieces after many years away from the keyboard. Some of the music is found in old notebooks and teenage enthusiasms, some of it is caught on the wing a response to the resurgence of the natural world during COVID lockdown. None of it is what he is meant to be doing.But then not all artistic interests are primary or professional interests. Sometimes it's the second-string activities, the diversions, that bring work and life into focus.The Point of Distraction is a unique account of music-making that embraces Bach, film, jazz, lit

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A novel based on the darkest chapter in the life of genius Alan Turing.In Murmur, a hallucinatory masterwork, Will Eaves invites us into the brilliant mind of Alec Pryor, a character inspired by Alan Turing. Turing, father of artificial intelligence and pioneer of radical new techniques to break the Nazi Enigma cipher during World War II, was later persecuted by the British state for 'gross indecency with another male' and forced to undergo chemical castration. Set during the devastating period before Turing’s suicide, Murmur evokes an extraordinary life, the beauty and sorrows of love, and the nature of consciousness.'...as bracingly intelligent as it is brave...[Eaves] knows that Turing's theories of consciousness have implications for fiction, and that fiction can operate at the frontiers of what we know about the workings of our minds.' — Guardian'Murmur is a fully achieved literary experiment, digging deep into all the dimensions of human consciousness.' — Goldsmiths Prize Judge's citation'[Murmur] is masterful — compassionate, principled, and moving. It is deeply wise, with the aching loneliness of both human indignity and dignity, despair and courage.' — Anne Michaels, author of Fugitive Pieces and All We Saw'A really extraordinary book, unlike any other.' — Max Porter, author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

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Winner of the 2019 Wellcome Book PrizeWinner of the 2019 Republic of Consciousness PrizeShortlisted for the 2018 Goldsmiths PrizeShortlisted for the 2019 James Tait Black PrizeLonglisted for the 2019 Rathbones Folio PrizeTaking its cue from the arrest and legally enforced chemical castration of the mathematician Alan Turing, Murmur is the account of a man who responds to intolerable physical and mental stress with love, honour and a rigorous, unsentimental curiosity about the ways in which we perceive ourselves and the world.Formally audacious, daring in its intellectual inquiry and unwaveringly humane, Will Eaves's Murmur is a rare achievement.

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