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Imprint: Vintage
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Published: 16/04/2020
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ISBN: 9781529110708
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Length: 336 Pages
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RRP: £8.99
‘Just downright brilliant... a transcendent, transporting experience’ Observer
A newborn baby is the sole survivor of a terrifying plane crash. She is raised in wealthy isolation by an overprotective father. She knows nothing of the rumours about a beautiful young woman, hidden from the world.
When a suitor visits, he understands far more than he should. Forced to run for his life, he escapes aboard The Porpoise, an assassin on his tail… So begins a wild adventure of a novel, damp with salt spray, blood and tears.
A novel that leaps from the modern era to ancient times; a novel that soars, and sails, and burns long and bright; a novel that almost drowns in grief yet swims ashore.
Pirates rampage, a princess wins a wrestler’s hand, and ghost women with lampreys’ teeth drag a man to hell – and in which the members of a shattered family, adrift in a violent world, journey towards a place called home.
‘A full-throttle blast of storytelling mastery’ Max Porter
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Imprint: Vintage
-
Published: 16/04/2020
-
ISBN: 9781529110708
-
Length: 336 Pages
-
RRP: £8.99
Reviews
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"Wondrous... a violent, all-action thrill ride shuttling between antiquity and the present... just downright brilliant... a transcendant, transporting experience... A helix, a mirror ball, a literary box of tricks… take your pick: this is a full-spectrum pleasure, mixing metafictional razzmatazz with pulse-racing action and a prose style to die for. I’ll be staggered if it’s not spoken of whenever prizes are mentioned this year"
Anthony Cummins, Observer
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"A beautifully rendered retelling…[and] a gripping novel that, despite its rollicking plot, never feels relentless, and is often very affecting indeed"
Jon Day, Financial Times
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"The extraordinary force and vividness of Haddon's prose ensure that The Porpoise reads [...] as a continually unfolding demonstration of the transporting power of stories... This is language that knows how to do things: sail a ship, make a gold buckle, negotiate the tides of the Thames. It's a stunningly effective combination of the quotidian and the mythic that pins impossibility to the page"
Justine Jordan, Guardian
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"Compelling, satisfying and moving... Haddon's writing is exquisite, balancing simple storytelling with searing insight"
Paul Connolly, Metro
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"The Porpoise is terrifically violent, with a bright, innocent ferocity … Haddon wants to restore agency to the female characters sidelined by the Antiochus legend. This could feel like a condescending attempt to end up on the right of history, but doesn’t"
Katy Waldman, The New Yorker
