The Pardon Of St Anne

William Palmer is the author of five novels, The Good Republic, Leporello, The Contract, The Pardon of Saint Anne and The India House, and a collection of short stories, Four Last Things. He was awarded a Travelling Scholarship by the Society of Authors in 1997. A book of poems, The Island Rescue, won the Collection Prize at the Listowel Writers' Week festival in Ireland in 2006. He reviews regularly for the Independent and other journals. He lives in south-west London. 
 
http://www.williampalmer.info/

Working as a news photographer in 30s Berlin, Walther Klinger becomes - by a vicious twist of fate - a society photographer for the new aristocracy of the Nazi party. Walther's complicity makes him increasingly cynical and guilty, so that - for him - the coming of war is almost a relief. In a lonely Brittany farmhouse, just before the Allied invasion, Klinger meets Julia. They begin an affair and, against the background of the horrors and normalities of the Occupation, Walther attempts to make a refuge for himself and Julia. THE PARDON OF ST ANNE is about how he succeeds, triumphantly and tragically.

The Good Republic

Opening in 1939, this novel spans 50 years and depicts the central character's life as a political emigre in a run down part of London. He is invited to return to his home city by the renascent nationalist movement where he learns the price of remaining an "innocent" in history.

Four Last Things

"Do you know what the last four things are? In the 
Christian catechism they are Death, Judgment, Heaven 
and Hell. But in our secular age they should perhaps be 
changed. I suggest - First Love, Friendship, Betrayal 
and Death . . . These also happen to be the staples of 
the novelist. Is that the sort of thing you want?"' 
 
Thus Cornelius Marten asks the researcher who turns up one night 
at his house. Cornelius has forgotten his invitation to the young 
man. But the young woman who accompanies him seems strangely 
familiar. Cornelius is flattered by their attention. He had thought 
himself almost forgotten; his great works neglected. And Cornelius, 
monstrously selfish, whisky glass constantly in hand, his mind 
shifting between past and present, finds that his mysterious guests 
release memories and truths he had preferred to forget. 
 
The stories which follow Four Last Things complement and explore 
some of the same themes: the poet who has published only one 
poem; a bizarre stag night; a child who is haunted by his encounter 
with the adult world of a religious maniac; a dreamed murder; 
an academic who stirs the ghost of Byron in modern Venice; 
the shifts and deceptions of language and memory; and in a great 
jazzman's last wordless hurrah, a final flowering of beauty. 
This irresistibly powerful volume by the author of The Good 
Republic, Leporello and The Contract confirms William Palmer as 
one of our finest writers.

The Contract

One day in June 1931 the body of a young girl was found on a lonely beach in Long Island, New York. She was bruised and there were some signs that she had been raped. It was thought that she had been murdered. She was soon identified as Starr Faithfull, a nicely brought up girl from a good family, but the picture soon began to change. Starr was not what she seemed: she was sexually promiscuous, mentally unstable and, crucially, had been abused as a child by her guardian, a prominent Boston politician. A tabloid sensation in the 1930s, the story of Starr Faithfull is the basis of William Palmer's extraordinary new novel.

Leporello

Don Giovanni di Tenario, lives on in the memory of his servant Leporello. In Leporello's tale, the Don escapes his summons to Hell and master and servant travel through the courts and casinos, lodging houses and brothels of eighteenth-century Europe. Their journey ends with Don Giovanni returning to his family estates - and a terrible inheritance.

The India House

'William Palmer is a fine writer with a gift for narrative and a sharp eye for peering into the dark and dusty corners of the human psyche' - Louis de Bernieres

A blackly, bleakly comic novel... An enjoyable, original fable

Casual-seeming but frighteningly perceptive. Palmer is a master of sly, deadpan narration. Not a word or detail seems misplaced

Wry and vivid, this novel is a little gem

An absorbing symphonic novel. A delightful, enjoyable tale. William Palmer is a master craftsman

The locals call it 'The India House'. But they have little to do with the three women who live there: grandmother, mother and daughter. 
 
Old Mrs Covington dreams of India and the days of the Raj. Her daughter Evelyn watches obsessively over eighteen-year-old Julia. Julia's tutor, Mr Henry, has been instructed to keep her in a state of 'innocence'. Every day he censors the newspaper and reports a sanitised version to the family. 
 
But it is 1956 and Britain is changing. Mrs Covington may shut out the modern world, but she cannot prevent the arrival of her son Roland, and her handsome grandson, James. The fragile paradise the women have constructed is about to be changed forever.

William Palmer

It is 1792 and a group of English gentlemen is recruiting settlers for a new world. Anti-slavers, they foresee the shining vision of a free colony in Africa where all races and classes can live together in harmony. 
 
More than a hundred men, women and children set sail from London bound for Muranda, an island off the west coat of Africa. To lead them, they have Sir George Whitcroft; to sail their ship, the gallant Captain Coupland; Dr Owen to treat their ills; the Reverend Tolchard to guide their spiritual lives; and Caspar Jeavons, a young aristocratic poet, to record their exploits. 
 
When they land, Muranda seems a paradise. Fruit hangs from the trees, the waters swarm with fish, the local king is friendly. Some begin to work. Others prefer to laze and swim, to drink and dance at night. But then the tropical rains begin and beat relentlessly down, fever strikes arbitrarily, and violence reveals itself in this brave new world...

William Palmer

Praise for The Devil is White

Historical fiction at its most immersive

Books by William Palmer

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