"The historical novel should do three things: make tangible the period in question; reflect it into the modern world; and, like all novels, entertain. Barry Unsworth is a master of all three concerns." TLS
Long on my wishlist, a Barry Unsworth novel is at last on my desk with the arrival of his new book The Quality of Mercy. This begins in the immediate aftermath of the events of his Booker prize-winning Sacred Hunger, and opens in the spring of 1767 where it follows two of the main characters from the earlier book, Sullivan, an Irish fiddler, and Erasmus Kemp, the son of a disgraced Liverpool slave-ship owner.
Sullivan has absconded, escaping trial for mutiny and piracy while on Kemp's ship, and is on his way to the village of Thorpe in the East Durham coalfields, there to visit the family of Billy Blair, a dead former shipmate, and tell them how he met his end. Kemp, meanwhile, wants to spend some of his sugar and slavery fortune investing in coal-mining and steel; tipped off about an investment opportunity in East Durham, he, too, makes his way to Thorpe...
I've heard such praise for Barry Unsworth's work that I'm greatly looking forward to becoming acquainted with it at last. Have you read him?
I bought Losing Nelson a number of years ago , read it and loved it. I gave it to friends to read and lost track of my copy. I had a yearning to read it again recently and bought it again.
I think you would like it a lot.
Posted by: Brenda | 19 August 2011 at 01:09 PM
I have Sacred Hunger and After Hannibal on my shelves but haven't read either, I'm ashamed to say.
I think I read Stone Virgin a very long time ago, or rather part of it as I recall that I wasn't able to finish it before it had to go back to the library but I can't remember a great deal about it.
Another writer I need to try again - the list is endless!
Posted by: LizF | 19 August 2011 at 01:34 PM
I liked The Stone Virgin a lot, and read another after that, I think, but it was a long time ago and I rather lost sight of him after that. I've meant to try again since, but never quite got round to it.
Posted by: GeraniumCat | 19 August 2011 at 05:43 PM
Losing Nelson was intiguing but ultimately rather unsatisfactory and has a rather spurious plot. Morality Play, on the other hand, is a novel - by which I mean, it's really a novel, not just a piece of storytelling or historical fiction: its a magnificent, dramatic story, and utilises a stage technique (which I can't identify becasue it wd spoil the plot too much) which I recently heard of being used in Sudan as part of a drama group's efforts to help peace and reconciliation: nothing new under the sun! Morality Play wd make an excellent CBG read - worthwhile, strong story, not too long - but not, like some of my favourites, too heavy, grim or a-structural!!
Posted by: Lindsay | 19 August 2011 at 05:50 PM