Gustav Sonata

Tremain, Rose

£9.99

It is the tutor who tells the young Gustav that he must try to be more like a coconut – that he needs a hard shell to protect the softness inside. This is what his native Switzerland has perfected – a shell to protect its neutrality, to keep its people safe. But his beloved friend, Anton, doesn’t want to be safe – a gifted pianist, he longs to make his mark on the world outside. On holiday one summer in Davos, the boys stumble across a remote building. Long ago, it was a TB sanitorium; now it is wrecked and derelict. Here, they play a game of life and death, deciding which of their imaginary patients must burn. It becomes their secret. ‘The Gustav Sonata’ begins in the 1930s, under the shadow of the Second World War, and follows the boys into maturity, and middle age, where their friendship is tested as never before.

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Publish Date: 26/01/2017
ISBN: 9781784700201 Category: Tags: ,

Description

What is the difference between friendship and love?

Gustav grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem a distant echo. But Gustav’s father has mysteriously died, and his adored mother Emilie is strangely cold and indifferent to him. Gustav’s life is a lonely one until he meets Anton. An intense lifelong friendship develops but Anton fails to understand how deeply and irrevocably his life and Gustav’s are entwined until it is almost too late…

A perfect novel about life’s imperfection… Tremain is writing at the height of her inimitable powers…’ Kate Kellaway, Observer

Heartbreaking, unsentimental and beautifully written, and it reinforces my opinion that there are few writers out there with the dexterity or emotional intelligence to rival that of the great Rose Tremain.’ John Boyne, The Irish Times

Additional information

Weight 223 g
Dimensions 198 × 129 × 19 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

308

Language

English

Edition

1st paperback ed

Dewey

823.914 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K