Review
From the reviews of X 20:
‘Elegant, witty and confident’
Observer
‘Beard is as good on the sensuality of smoking as on the philosophy. This is an unusually intelligent, funny and readable first book.’
Sunday Times
‘Beard’s prose is dry, nonchalant and fluent. An accomplished first novel.’
TLS
‘Populated by a cast of well-drawn eccentrics, loaded with encyclopaedic detail on the history and iconography of smoking, this comic novel nevertheless aims at deep seriousness. Beard’s writing can be breathtaking’
Daily Telegraph
Product Description
The new novel from the author of X 20.
How much can a life change in a day, in the blinding flash of a moment? What can you learn about someone in an instant, in a lifetime? Take a day, any day, and see.
A funny, clever and unusual novel – a love story in which all the events, people and places are taken from the contents of the 1 November 1993 issue of The Times newspaper. Every object, item of clothing, shop, book, colour or weather system in Damascus can be found in the one newspaper, as can the scores in sports events and the occupations of passersby – all brought together by Richard Beard’s crisp and witty storytelling.
From the Back Cover
How much can a life change in a day, in the blinding flash of a moment? What can you learn about someone in a instant, in a lifetime? Take a day, any day, and see.
Take 1 November 1993. It’s the last day of the UK and the first of the European Union, and somewhere in Britain, in Ballymena or Aberdeen or Newport or Tunbridge Wells, Hazel Burns and Spencer Kelly are being born, falling in love and getting the house all to themselves for the day. They’re looking for signs, waiting for thunderbolts that will make it all instantly clear to them – life, love, everything.
With 'Damascus', Richard Beard brings us a truly acrobatic book, a novel that daringly moves between time and progress and destiny, and deftly finds love and desire in the momentum of lives.
' “ Beard’s writing can be breathtaking.” '
DAILY TELEGRAPH
' “ Elegant, witty and confident.” '
OBSERVER
About the Author
Richard Beard was born in 1967. His short stories and literary criticism have been published and broadcast both in France and England. Damascus is his second novel.
