Bøger af Janette Turner Hospital

In the turbulent political summer of 1968, the lives of four very different people become inextricably intertwined. All four are shape-shifters, identity-switchers, two for criminal reasons, two for blameless purposes of survival. One of the four is a smooth con man, a charmer similar in style to Bernie Madoff, stylish, gentlemanly, classy and unencumbered by a conscience. Another is an equally charming and even smoother serial killer who never arouses suspicion. The four lives are scattered (to Vietnam, to France, to Australia) but are drawn back together in Manhattan in 1996 for the trial of the Vanderbilt claimant and a tense thriller climax. International Dublin Literary Award Nominee Nominated by: The State Library of South Australia, Adelaide Publisher of nominated edition: HarperCollins Australia Nomination Citation: A dark and delicious tale which begins as a complex riddle of identity and class divisions in wonderfully drawn settings in France, Australia and Manhattan. The story never becomes too cryptic though. Our panel highly recommended this novel. Australian reviews of THE CLAIMANT Here is one of the most unusual fictional postscripts to Australia's involvement in Vietnam, besides being a vivid, ambivalent snapshot of American politics of the 1960s as galvanized by the war....Hospital combines psychological acuity with command of a range of settings, from luxurious to grunge, that will tempt those who might wish to bring the novel to the screen. In the meantime, readers have a big book to enjoy. Sydney Morning Herald The Claimant shares its vibrantly beating heart with the implications and intricacies of privelege, the iron grip of lineage, the complexities of naming and identity...and the persistence of the essential self.... Janette Turner Hospital is a splendid prose stylist in command of her art, and amazingly confident in exploring and testing its possibilities - now a lush sensuousness, now a sort of electric sparking precision and, and not least of all her armoury, a free-ranging referencing of literature and art... The Claimant is a genuine page-turner. Australian Book Review The Claimant is a book about spies and collaborators, about art and religion, and its focus is a fictional court case in the late 20th century over a family fortune and the search for a lost heir. Its concern is the way our identities change, even in the simplest ways, depending on the stages of our lives, who we are with, what the expectations are of us - our class, our politics, our nationalities. Told in an intricate and complex way, The Claimant is ...a mystery thriller. It's a feat of plotting, and I imagined Janette Turner Hospital holding all the plot points and identities like a huge hand of cards. Australian Broadcasting Commission: National Book Program [Interview with Romona Koval, who selected The Claimant for nationwide discussion]

Presents fifteen stories of lives precariously balanced between the past and the present, between the real and the imagined, between the steamy tropical rain forests and beaches of Australia and the urban landscapes of North American cities.

In an enthralling novel as passionate as it is true to life, Hospital reveals an American underworld of suspicion and despair, and shows how fear and paranoia have worked their way into our daily lives.

A Library Journal Best Book and Booklist Editor's Choice: "This astonishingly rich novel...will entrance readers."-Library Journal, starred review

"A new standard for the short story genre that will be hard to surpass." --Library Journal

These moving and insightful stories help us to find our place in a world in which we have all become rootless travelers. Janette Turner Hospital's characters are exiles who share an intimate knowledge of dislocation: from their culture, from their native countries, from themselves. Her intimate stories capture the turning points in her characters' lives from Indian lovers on a last romantic weekend before their arranged marriages to a daughter's welcome home after years of travel. Janette Turner Hospital is a wanderer herself. A native of Australia, she has lived in India, England, Canada, and the United States. She is the author of numerous novels, including Oyster, which is published by Norton and was shortlisted for Australia's Miles Franklin and National Book Awards.

"A story of high tension and terrifying allure...Her writing has perfect pitch."-Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times

"In this bracing, visceral thriller...Hospital continually locates, in human events, the unyieldingly human experience."-San Francisco Chronicle

Janette Turner Hospital has been called by the Times Literary Supplement "one of the most powerful and innovative writers in English today." Oyster has received critical acclaim internationally, and was short-listed for the prestigious Miles Franklin Award and the National Book Award in Australia.