Contact
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Review
Highly accomplished, expertly paced... the work of an author at the very top of his game. -- Press Association, 9th February 2010
A riveting and edgy read - the dialogue and scene-setting are spot on. --The Bookseller: panel choices, June 2010
A thoughtful and unsettling novel in which anxieties and insights slowly acrete. --The Times Literary Supplement
A book group could really go to town on this one, but you can guess by now I was completely drawn in...and Contact became my first really unputdownable book of 2010. --Dove grey reader (blog) February 2010
A riveting and edgy read - the dialogue and scene-setting are spot on. --The Bookseller: panel choices, June 2010
A thoughtful and unsettling novel in which anxieties and insights slowly acrete. --The Times Literary Supplement
A book group could really go to town on this one, but you can guess by now I was completely drawn in...and Contact became my first really unputdownable book of 2010. --Dove grey reader (blog) February 2010
Product Description
This is a startling breakthough novel from Jonathan Buckley, acclaimed author of Ghost MacIndoe and So He Takes the Dog. It will be up for every prize going: a gripping, utterly compelling book whose themes hit home and hard for the baby boom generation. Dominic Pattison's life is one of level contentment: his marriage has proved happy and durable; his business, too, is successful.And then Sam Williams, a builder and ex-squaddie, enters his life. Sam claims to be his son. Yet is Sam who he says he is? After almost thirty years, Dominic can remember little of the affair with Sam's mother. His instinct is to recoil from this aggressive and volatile stranger, who could, with just a few words, take his life apart. But Sam refuses to be dismissed. With its deft switches of sympathy between menaced 'father' and rebuffed 'son' and its exploration of the intricacies of memory, Contact will resonate long with its readers.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I have to admit I found this a strange book. The prose is so transparent, so lacking in artifice, as to render the narrative curiously flat; the opening and closing sentences, in particular, are almost toneless. There is no 'style' (barely any description; barely an adjective in the entire book); the authorial voice is more conspicuously absent than in almost anything else I've ever read. Yet the dialogue is brilliant, and as a 'thriller' - of sorts - it's utterly compelling. I read it not just on the Tube, but on the escalators; not just on the bus, but in the bus shelter. The lack of 'voice' makes the main character (it's told in the first person) hard to both know, and sympathise with; yet this is, I suspect, entirely deliberate; the readers' perception is being played with all the time, and that would be made harder if the narrattee was someone whose side you were firmly on. Yet for all that - for all the skill doubtlessly employed in its creation - there is something missing, something more than what was designed to be missing. I'm finding it hard to put my finger on what. Perhaps it is, quite simply, heart.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
There were times when the sense of menace was so strong in this novel that I couldn't continue reading - which is particularly remarkable as the writing is pared down, almost lacking in emotional tone, and exceedingly unhistrionic. The central character /narrator, the 'I' of the novel is a man who doesn't really inhabit his deep feelings anyway, he is analytical and cerebral - and the language of the book reflects this perfectly. Yet the sense of brooding doom continues to build.
In many ways this novel reminded me of Ian McEwan's Enduring Love - in fact of more than one of MeEwan's books - that sense of unease brought in by the stranger, whose role in the story is to shatter the assumptions our lives are built around, to bleakly make us reexamine who we are.
A harsh, despairing book in many ways - but also containing compassion. There is no real villain, nor no real hero.
I'm now interested to read Buckley's earlier books - even the 'blurb' on the book's covers is muted - I'm so used to oversell that this comparative 'undersell' gave me no idea of how powerful I'd find this book!
In many ways this novel reminded me of Ian McEwan's Enduring Love - in fact of more than one of MeEwan's books - that sense of unease brought in by the stranger, whose role in the story is to shatter the assumptions our lives are built around, to bleakly make us reexamine who we are.
A harsh, despairing book in many ways - but also containing compassion. There is no real villain, nor no real hero.
I'm now interested to read Buckley's earlier books - even the 'blurb' on the book's covers is muted - I'm so used to oversell that this comparative 'undersell' gave me no idea of how powerful I'd find this book!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
A man in middle age is contacted by a young man who claims to be a son from a relationship the older man had while he was with the person who became, and still is, his wife. That alone is quite intriguing. His "son" wants him to tell his wife about him, the man is concerned about the impact it may have on his relationship with her. There is also the fact that it might not be his son.
That scenario alone would be quite interesting. However the "son" is a very different type of person to his "father". A rough diamond (although possibly not too diamond like!) and with some real personal issues. That gives the novel a real edginess to me and kept me reading/intrigued throughout.
Add to the above Dominic's (the older man) mental reviewing of the affair he had. He starts with the view that it was of no real significance to him at all - is this a true memory? Part of the story is of the journey back in time in Dominic's mind to examine the relationship again.
This worked for me - a good read and maybe even 4.5 stars I think.
That scenario alone would be quite interesting. However the "son" is a very different type of person to his "father". A rough diamond (although possibly not too diamond like!) and with some real personal issues. That gives the novel a real edginess to me and kept me reading/intrigued throughout.
Add to the above Dominic's (the older man) mental reviewing of the affair he had. He starts with the view that it was of no real significance to him at all - is this a true memory? Part of the story is of the journey back in time in Dominic's mind to examine the relationship again.
This worked for me - a good read and maybe even 4.5 stars I think.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A bit of a let down
The blurb for this book & the critical aclaim promise far more than it ever really delivers
The writing is extremely descriptive & concentrates heavily on describing... Read more
The writing is extremely descriptive & concentrates heavily on describing... Read more
Published 17 months ago by T. Andrews
Interesting, though the story isn't.
I didn't really want to read yet another novel where a smug middle-aged man's life is threatened by a mysterious, angry stranger. Read more
Published 23 months ago by annwiddecombe
"I did once try to send him a text, but it wouldn't transmit"
This charismatic book centres around two characters who both want something from each other but are totally unable to communicate. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Sam Woodward
Ummm...
Contact is about a man (Dominic) whose life is suddenly uprooted by the arrival of someone claiming to be his son (Sam), the product of an affair many years earlier. Read more
Published 24 months ago by Reader
Dark Yet Unsatisfying
"Contact" is a book with a sense of its own dark menace as a seeemingly random encounter between a troubled young man and a man he claims is his biological father descends slowly... Read more
Published on 27 May 2010 by pjr
A blast from the past..
This well written novel may sit uncomfortabley with us 40-50 year olds, starting to relax into a life of comfortable complacency. Read more
Published on 20 May 2010 by Roger Sharp
Interesting concept
It is hard to review this book properly without giving away the ending which obviously I do not want to do. Read more
Published on 18 May 2010 by Pen pal
curious
ordered this one on the strength of the reviews but found it a little unsatisfying.
It's elegantly written with a very lean approach - references to McEwan being very apt -... Read more
It's elegantly written with a very lean approach - references to McEwan being very apt -... Read more
Published on 9 May 2010 by paul
Did not live up to the hype
The Amazon page for this book hints at a masterpiece, with an abundance of tantalising quotes and the promise of a finely crafted thriller. Read more
Published on 4 May 2010 by J. Dawson
An intriguing novel of memory and morality
I found this book a read of two halves. One on hand it is an extremely well written and engaging novel. Read more
Published on 27 April 2010 by Brian Hamilton
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
