| ||||||||||||||||||
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
The Bookseller
`An enthralling tale set among the lost dreams of post-Depression era America... Ferguson will undoubtedly reach more readers with this fast and funny story'
Sunday Herald
'overall this is a teriffic novel - complex but fun, philosophical but sharp, perceptive but ambiguous'
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.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A beautifully written, compelling novel about con artists in the 1930s and 40s. The historical research is thorough and fascinatingly presented as part of the narrative, and the characters sympathetically drawn, especially the narrator, who has the brain but not the heart of a con man - a young man of many talents, but no pretensions. One of the most compelling elements of the book is the description of the various types of con tricks, but it is the people playing them who stay with you. The sense of place is strong too: you can almost smell the dust of the poor towns of the southern United States in the mid-20th century. Very highly recommended: a real pleasure.
Format:Hardcover
This is a marvellous road trip novel, set in the 1930s, detailing the exploits of Virgil and Miss Rose who, in Paradise Flats, a back-of-beyond town in the mid-West, make the acquaintance of young Jack Geary. Jack learned an early lesson at the hands of his father, who sold almost all his possessions in the grip of a nation-wide scam that promised those investing in it a portion of the gold that Sir Francis Drake sent to the bottom of the ocean in the war with Spain.
Jack is smart, puzzling over Pascal's wager in the library and learning even more in pursuit of the librarian's daughter. He is duped by carneys (carnival fraudsters) while trying to win a prize for his girlfriend, and then he meets up with Virgil and Miss Rose and takes off with them on a roller-coaster ride around the townships and misbegotten wayside stop-overs of the mid west of North America.
Neither Miss Rose nor Virgil are who they purport to be - they are card-sharps, scam merchants and tricksters and a great deal of the novel features their exploits with all kinds of confidence tricks, including selling the proverbial Spanish Fly (labelled `Genuine Placebo' in a nice touch). But then comes the scam to beat all others and the trio are almost wiped out - a matter of dandelions on the lawn and a gum-chewing waitress who doesn't pick up her paycheck are what saves them.
This book is genuinely funny as well as rather shocking, and the characterisation is uniformly good. It's an entertaining read and though the pace flags a little towards the last third, it ends on a high note and is well-worth the reader's persistence.
Jack is smart, puzzling over Pascal's wager in the library and learning even more in pursuit of the librarian's daughter. He is duped by carneys (carnival fraudsters) while trying to win a prize for his girlfriend, and then he meets up with Virgil and Miss Rose and takes off with them on a roller-coaster ride around the townships and misbegotten wayside stop-overs of the mid west of North America.
Neither Miss Rose nor Virgil are who they purport to be - they are card-sharps, scam merchants and tricksters and a great deal of the novel features their exploits with all kinds of confidence tricks, including selling the proverbial Spanish Fly (labelled `Genuine Placebo' in a nice touch). But then comes the scam to beat all others and the trio are almost wiped out - a matter of dandelions on the lawn and a gum-chewing waitress who doesn't pick up her paycheck are what saves them.
This book is genuinely funny as well as rather shocking, and the characterisation is uniformly good. It's an entertaining read and though the pace flags a little towards the last third, it ends on a high note and is well-worth the reader's persistence.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Ferguson keeps getting better!
17 Jun 2008
Format:Hardcover
i just stumbled upon Ferguson's early work "Happiness" in a second hand book shop, and really enjoyed it. It was witty, populated with characters that were suitably flawed and human, and a plot that kept you reading.
His latest is even better - with a wonderfully crafted backdrop of the late 1930's in the dust-bowl hard scramble U.S. Ferguson creates a foreshadowing of a dark cloud of a coming war, through small clips of events in Europe. (Ferguson is slightly off on some historical details in these snippets, but they still are used to good effect).
Essentially a story of a small town young man who meets with a pair of grifters and discovers much about life, human nature and himself.
An absolute pleasure to read!
Marc L.
His latest is even better - with a wonderfully crafted backdrop of the late 1930's in the dust-bowl hard scramble U.S. Ferguson creates a foreshadowing of a dark cloud of a coming war, through small clips of events in Europe. (Ferguson is slightly off on some historical details in these snippets, but they still are used to good effect).
Essentially a story of a small town young man who meets with a pair of grifters and discovers much about life, human nature and himself.
An absolute pleasure to read!
Marc L.
Rabbitt
23 April 2012
Format:Paperback
Spanish fly is a well written book. A very good story.reminds me of el Doctorow. I wish it was available in ebooks for easier reading
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
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.
|
