Pilcrow
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Product Description
Book Description
A wonderful and much-anticipated coming-of-age story from an acclaimed literary author.
Product Description
Meet John Cromer, one of the most unusual heroes in modern fiction. If the minority is always right then John is practically infallible. Growing up disabled and gay in the 1950s, circumstances force John from an early age to develop an intense and vivid internal world. As his character develops, this ability to transcend external circumstance through his own strength of character proves invaluable. Extremely funny and incredibly poignant, this is a major new novel from a writer at the height of his powers.
'I'm not sure I can claim to have taken my place in the human alphabet . . . I'm more like an optional accent or specialised piece of punctuation, hard to track down on the typewriter or computer keyboard . . .'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
'The spring I learned to drive, the cherry tree in front of our house in Bourne End flowered as never before'. It was 1968'.
From these opening lines I was expecting a David Mitchell ( in Black Swan Green mode) exploration of adolescence. Instead there is a slow moving, incredibly detailed account of firstly bed rest for rheumatic fever - absolutely the wrong treatment for the Still's disease that it turns out that John Cromer really has - and then life in the special hospital for children with Still's.
It's a strange rites of passage novel as John Cromer is a strange boy. The detail of the descriptions can be excruciating - his pain at the hands of the nurses rather than his mother's care, his first sexual encounters and the logistical and physical difficulty of them considering his handicaps and those of his partners.
The detail and the length give us some insight into a life which is so severely curtailed physically if not in thought and spirit...but I'm still left wondering what Adam Mars-Jones was telling us.
The writing is good and funny - but the book just ends - I've since read that this is the first book in a trilogy - in which case I don't think it works fully as a stand alone volume.
From these opening lines I was expecting a David Mitchell ( in Black Swan Green mode) exploration of adolescence. Instead there is a slow moving, incredibly detailed account of firstly bed rest for rheumatic fever - absolutely the wrong treatment for the Still's disease that it turns out that John Cromer really has - and then life in the special hospital for children with Still's.
It's a strange rites of passage novel as John Cromer is a strange boy. The detail of the descriptions can be excruciating - his pain at the hands of the nurses rather than his mother's care, his first sexual encounters and the logistical and physical difficulty of them considering his handicaps and those of his partners.
The detail and the length give us some insight into a life which is so severely curtailed physically if not in thought and spirit...but I'm still left wondering what Adam Mars-Jones was telling us.
The writing is good and funny - but the book just ends - I've since read that this is the first book in a trilogy - in which case I don't think it works fully as a stand alone volume.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I agree with all the other five star reviews. Fascinating, witty, moving and superbly well written. Really gets you inside the head of a disabled child I felt. Highly reccomended
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a truly remarkable novel, a masterpiece. It is a Proustian evocation of a fifties childhood, recaptured in extraordinary detail, and with great wit and good humour. Mars Jones is well known as a critic and for his shorter fiction, and here for the first time he writes at leisurely length. A second volume is promised, and is eagerly awaited by his admirers.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Punctuation
An absolute delight, if a little tannic for those with more delicate palates; this was purchased after laughing a lot with a friend over the beginning of the second volume of the... Read more
Published 7 months ago by MatthewJGC
A long book to relish
John Cromer, Pilcrow's narrator, is a boy growing up disabled in fifties England. The book covers his childhood and adolescence, spent first at home confined to his bed and then at... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Eleanor
Not very amusing.
I was drawn to this author by a spectacular review by the same of a Nobel winning author, which trashed his latest book with little mercy. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Kriss
Cannot recommend highly enough
An inspiring book full of candour and humour. Should be put on the national curriculum as an exemplar of fine literary writing and an object lesson in the experience of the... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Whiteley Reader
Remarkably empathetic
The author captures perfectly a 1950s childhood (like my own) in a lower middle class family. The ignorance and curiosity of a child is well portrayed, also his emerging... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Mr. D. P. Jay
Compelling
A totally compelling piece of work. It is indeed 'a brick' of a novel, but its watchword is readability. Entirely credible, fascinating, moving, funny, clever, thought-provoking. Read more
Published on 26 Oct 2009 by Anastasia Brown
Hugely enjoyable
This book really surprised me. It's a bit of a brick of a thing, a huge novel with small print, but it is incredibly easy to read and I flew through it. Read more
Published on 15 May 2009 by Peter Lee
Overlooked masterpiece
I started reading this tremendously inventive book just after giving up on this year's Man Booker prizewinner "The White Tiger", which, after a brilliant start, descended into... Read more
Published on 2 April 2009 by Phil
The Weakest Hero, But The Strongest
I had to give myself a little break from Pilcrow before I could review it so that I could take it all in and let it digest. Read more
Published on 12 Feb 2009 by Simon Savidge Reads
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