Product Description
A flawless fictional debut from a great young writer, shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award.
Book Description
In 1983, an ordinary teenager called Daniel Rathbone fell in love, spurned a friend, and stumbled on the ability to see in the dark. On his twenty-fifth birthday, Daniel is bequeathed a second no less unusual gift - a Victorian writing box, the legacy of his father and the repository of his youthful secrets, and of his current feelings of guilt.When a visit from the once-spurned friend, Carey Schumacher, coincides with the death of a contemporary, Daniel's peculiar endowments are enlisted to make lasting sense of lost time and place. From Bath to Brixton, from the 1960s to the 90s, The Oversight follows a trail of thwarted and victorious affections. It is an intently comic tale of vision and delusion; of family, friendship and desertion; and of the divisively cruel need to belong. A multi-layered debut of distinction. 'Deeply impressive... Eaves simply does not put a foot wrong' Evening Standard 'Remarkable... I was so absorbed in the novel, so admiring of its cleverness and poise... a moving , frequently funny and impressive debut' Sunday Times 'Eaves hasn't created a hero who can leap tall buildings, he's created something rarer still: a vivid portrait of a man getting to grips with adulthood' The Face 'Subtle wondrous...intelligence and taste...gems of dry humour...a varied and accomplished first novel' Scotland on Sunday
About the Author
Will Eaves was born in Bath in 1967. He is the author of two other novels, The Oversight (2001) and Nothing To Be Afraid Of (2005), and a collection of poems, Sound Houses (2011). For many years he was the arts editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He now teaches at the University of Warwick.
