- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Orion (8 April 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0575067160
- ISBN-13: 978-0575067165
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.5 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,110,486 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Tim Geary's third novel is a beautifully written and sensitively imagined portrait of a Canadian innocent trying to survive in contemporary London. Geary has also taken a big risk, creating a female protagonist who narrates her own story: an ambitious move that has tripped up many a talented male writer. But Geary succeeds brilliantly. His heroine, Portia Mills, is an utterly convincing female voice. A single 27-year-old still haunted by the death of her father 14 years previously, she comes over to England and gets embroiled, albeit willingly, in a kind of Chelsea set of semi-It girls and their well-heeled boyfriends. Jamie and Emma, Charlie, Camilla and Fee: Geary draws them deftly and with just the right amount of satire. Meanwhile Portia is adrift, involved in this world but not of it, and painfully conscious that she is simply getting old rather than getting on. When a relationship goes wrong, it all becomes too much for her and she begins to crack. Geary is not afraid to plunge the emotional depths as Portia falls apart, but even more importantly, he is not afraid to give us an ending full of realism, hope and reconciliation. -- Christopher Hart
Product Description
Haunted by her father's suicide, Portia Mills decides to leave her routine life in Toronto in search of England. When she meets Luke Bingham, Portia is introduced to a world of privilege and wealth but soon she realises that something is missing.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was recommended to me by a good friend of mine whose judgement I trust implicitly so even though it was written by a man (I apologise for being sexist) and had an odd title, I bought it. It has to be one of the best literary surprises of my life. This book has that feature of all the best books - you start reading and by the end of the first page, you are captivated by the writing, by the pictures the author paints - you can smell the air and hear the voices. I won't go into the story - it's been described above. Suffice it to say that this is a story that will stay with me a lifetime, that I had to cancel a lunch engagement to finish it, that I cried (and laughed) while I was reading it and that I finished it only to start it again (I didn't feel I had given the early pages enough attention first time round). Read this book - recommend it to your friends. Tim Geary is a remarkable writer.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I haven't even finished this book yet, but am enjoying it so completely that I couldn't wait to shout about it. I am a writer and my book is currently in the top twenty bestsellers, which is wonderful, but when I read a book like this, it makes me want to spit at the injustice of the publishing world. This book is a thousand times better than mine - this is the book that I always wanted to write and I couldn't because it's so difficult to write this well - Tim Geary makes it look so bloody easy! If I could write a book even half this good, I would die happy.
It's the little things that make this book so special - Portia storming out of a wedding because she couldn't cope with what was being expected of her socially, the competitiveness between Luke and his brother, the way he describes summer dying in a matter of hours one weekend, Portia not feeling like having sex first thing in the morning but doing it anyway. Nothing grates, there are no cliches, it's all so familiar yet there are descriptions of situations, places and emotions that I've never seen before in any novel. Geary also manages to make you really like Portia, who is, quite frankly, the type of girl I would steer clear of in real life, who I would be suspicious of, and that is such a clever thing to be able to do.
Although this is a stunningly well-written novel, it doesn't take itself at all seriously - it is literary with a small L. It is accessible and commercial. There is no reason why this book shouldn't appeal to the same sorts of people who have been buying my book its thousands. So why have I never heard of Geary and why is his book going to sell a tenth of mine?
It's all so unfair. Rectify this situation immediately by buying this book for all your friends and talking about it to strangers on the street!!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This seemed to be a poor attempt at a literary novel. The prose was so over the top. Also, the characters and plot were verging on the ridiculous and at times I felt almost embarassed to be reading it.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Get what you want? Careful!
In some ways, this is a difficult novel to engage with. The narrator is Portia, a woman in her early thirties living in Quebec, Canada, when she meets a young Englishman and moves... Read more
Published on 21 Sep 2009 by Eileen Shaw
Good story but not great prose.
This is quite an engaging novel which takes its protagonist on a pretty emotional roller-coaster ride, culminating in the truth about who her beloved father really was. Read more
Published on 7 July 2009 by Script Angel
Pop author goes upmarket....
I didn't realize until I'd attempted to read this book that Geary's previous efforts have been likened and marketed as like Jilly Cooper's. Read more
Published on 1 May 2003
What a disaster.
I adored Mr Geary's Ego (read my review of it), so I was anticipating that Shouting At the Ship Men would be equally great despite the ominously pretentious title. Read more
Published on 24 Feb 2003
Beautifully written, insightful, excellent plot
Like some other readers, I discovered this book on the site and after the reviews decided to buy it. The book I read was different from what I expected, but even better. Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2002
ambitious but dissatisfying
I bought this book after reading Maggie O'Farrell's "after you'd gone", which was a beautifully written, calm but devastatingly emotional book which captured grief... Read more
Published on 12 Aug 2001
Wow!
After reading the glowing reviews here on Amazon I just had to buy this book and I am so glad I stumbled upon it. One of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. Read more
Published on 4 July 2001
Wonderful
A beautifully written book. I agree with all the other reviewers about the psychological depth etc - but what I loved most was simply the language. Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2001
BRAVO GEARY!
Hurray for the author! - How wonderful and refreshing to read an original piece of 'fiction' as opposed to just another 'memoir'! Read more
Published on 3 May 1999
Gripping,passionate,and impossible to put down!
One of the most intense, visceral reading experiences imaginable....The individual stories woven together in such a compelling and expert fashion, the narrative flows so... Read more
Published on 19 April 1999
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