Review
--Observer
Thirwell's novel elegantly portrays the ageing Haffner's thrilling attempts to escape from lovers, the mafia, his family and himself.
--The Telegraph
`The writing is polished and full of allusions.' -- The Independent on Sunday
`Thirlwell's prose displays great erudition...' -- Guardian
`Also Out Now' --Times
Review
Book Description
Product Description
'The more I knew of Haffner,' writes Adam Thirlwell in The Escape, 'the more real he became, this was true. And, simultaneously, Haffner disappeared.'
In a forgotten spa town snug in the Alps, at the end of the twentieth century, Haffner is seeking a cure, more women, and a villa that belonged to his late wife.
But really he is trying to escape: from his family, his lovers, his history, his entire Haffnerian condition.
For Haffner is 78.
Haffner, in other words, is too old to be grown up.
From the Inside Flap
Haffner is charming, morally suspect, sexually omnivorous, vain. He is British and Jewish and a widower. But when was Haffner ever really married? Or Jewish? When was he ever attached?
There are so many stories of Haffner: but this, the most secret, is the greatest of them all.
In a spa town snug in the Alps, at the end of the twentieth century, the 78-year-old Haffner has arrived to claim his wife's inheritance: a villa expropriated by the century's totalitarian politics. But Haffner never does what he is told. In the spa hotel, he has tried to develop a mildly successful affair with a hungrily passionate married woman; and a much less successful affair with a capricious young yoga instructor.
But gradually, through the tribulations of government bureaucracy, he discovers that he wants this villa, very much. Now that he has to fight for it, he wants it.
For how can you ever desert from your past, your family, your history? That is the problem of Haffner's story in The Escape. That has always been the problem of Haffner's life. How do you remain a libertine?
So, through the digressions of his comic couplings and uncouplings, thorugh three days of sexual farce, emerge the stories of Haffner's century: the chaos of World War Two, the heyday of jazz, the post-war diaspora, the uncertain triumph of capitalism, and the inescapability of memory.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.From the Back Cover
'The more I knew of Haffner,' writes Adam Thirlwell in The Escape, 'the more real he became, this was true. And, simultaneously, Haffner disappeared.'
In a forgotten spa town snug in the Alps, at the end of the twentieth century, Haffner is seeking a cure, more women, and a villa that belonged to his late wife.
But really he is trying to escape: from his family, his lovers, his history, his entire Haffnerian condition.
For Haffner is 78.
Haffner, in other words, is too old to be grown up.
