The Auctioneer [Paperback]

Finn Causley is the auctioneer. The owner of an auction house in a Victorian silk mill, Finn tells his story through the objects others have left behind: a Staffordshire figure in a bonnet, slightly chipped; a faded friendship band; a white pill bottle with an easy-grip screw cap. The lots trigger a flood of mis-remembered conversations, childhood ghosts and memories: memories of Margaret, his mother, who died in a car crash with someone else's watch in her pocket and a whiff of adultery in the air; of Hen, his wife, who suffers from St. Mary's Disease, a form of dementia that erases her memory whilst giving her a masked smile. and then there's Anna, who stole his heart when she appeared in a Kandinsky dress by a pool at midnight.The Auctioneer is about the sort of history "made by cheap useful objects; what's dusty on your sideboard, what's sticky at the back of your drawer."; An intricate, well-paced history that is as much about the things that happen off-camera as on. Told in several voices, this first novel circles around Finn's grief and confusion as he becomes increasingly obsessed with his past. Complex, multi-layered and assured, The Auctioneer explores the relationships between love, deceit and the junk that clutters our lives.--Jane Honey --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"This big, anxious book surely marks the debut of a considerable talent."

"This is an extremely impressive first novel...a new writer so ambitious and thoughtful that you can't help but look forward to what will come next."

"Rich in beguiling detail, incidents and characters...The Auctioneer is an unusually ambitious debut."

This literary debut is the story of a young man’s twin obsessions – adoration for a girl met on a trip to Australia seven years earlier, and grief over the death of his mother when he was a child. Structured around an auction catalogue, using objects as the springboard for each chapter, it’s both a psychological thriller and an unusual love story.

In a Victorian silk mill in the Peak District, auction-handler Finn Causley is writing a catalogue of significant things. Outside, society is falling victim to a mysterious brain disorder characterised by euphoric forgetfulness; inside Finn’s job is to sell off the things left behind: objects that once had human meaning but now lie forgotten, the remnants of lives gone awry. In an edgily powerful narrative, structured around the objects he is cataloguing – objects that will ultimately prove to be keys to the truth, the self-deceiving auctioneer is forced to uncover bitter truths about the past and about himself. The Auctioneer is a novel of obsession and betrayal. Written with a deep historical feeling for the English landscape and a highly contemporary sense of irony, this is a love story at once utterly modern and as old as time.

A modern day love story of obession and forgetfulness
Here are just some of the comments that have been made in praise of Charles Fernyhough's brilliant first novel:This big, anxious book surely marks the debut of a considerable talent. Daily Telegraph

This is an unusual and challenging first novel. The Times

Rich in beguiling detail, incidents and characters . . . The Auctioneer is an unusually ambitious debut.TLS

This is an extremely impressive first novel . . . so ambitious and thoughtful that you cant help but look forward to what will come next.Observer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

On a summer’s night in Sydney, a young man crosses a swimming-pool and catches sight of the woman of his dreams. Seven years later, an older Finn Causley is sitting in a cluttered mill in England, compiling a catalogue of significant things while Hen, the mother of his child, succumbs to a mysterious disease of euphoric forgetfulness.

Into Finn’s life returns Anna, the girl from the swimming-pool, and the few things he knows about love are painfully revised.

Charles Fernyhough was born in Essex in 1968. He studied developmental psychology at Cambridge University and wrote a doctoral thesis on why children talk to themselves. He has had stories and poetry published in anthologies. The Auctioneer is his first novel.