shopping cart
Save up to 30% on our Staff Picks
Call us:  800-878-7323 HELP
McAfee SECURE helps keep you safe from identity theft, credit card fraud, spyware, spam, viruses and online scams.
Powell's Q&A, Q&A | December 13, 2009

Norberto Fuentes: IMG Powell's Q&A: Norberto Fuentes



Describe your latest project. Norton has just published The Autobiography of Fidel Castro, a novel that took seven years of my life to complete as I... Continue »
  1. $19.56 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

Headlong

by Michael Frayn

Headlong Cover

ISBN13: 9780312267469
ISBN10: 0312267460
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

An unlikely con man wagers wife, wealth, and sanity in pursuit of an elusive Old Master.

Invited to dinner by the boorish local landowner, Martin Clay, an easily distracted philosopher, and his art-historian wife are asked to assess three dusty paintings blocking the draught from the chimney. But hiding beneath the soot is nothing less-Martin believes-than a lost work by Bruegel. So begins a hilarious trail of lies and concealments, desperate schemes and soaring hopes as Martin, betting all that he owns and much that he doesn't, embarks on a quest to prove his hunch, win his wife over, and separate the painting from its owner.

In Headlong, Michael Frayn, "the master of what is seriously funny" (Anthony Burgess), offers a procession of superbly realized characters, from the country squire gone to seed to his giddy, oversexed young wife. All are burdened by human muddle and human cravings; all are searching for a moral compass as they grapple with greed, folly, and desire. And at the heart of the clamor is Breugel's vision, its dark tones warning of the real risks of temptation and obsession.

With this new novel, Michael Frayn has given us entertainment of the highest order. Supremely wise and wickedly funny, Headlong elevates Frayn into the front rank of contemporary novelists.

Review:

"Frayn has constructed an ingenious plot around a missing Bruegel painting as entertaining as it is intelligent, as stimulating as it is funny." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

About the Author

Michael Frayn is a celebrated British playwright and is also the author of eight novels (including Headlong and Spies) and three screenplays. He lives in London.

What Our Readers Are Saying

Add a comment for a chance to win!
Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Zmrzlina, August 26, 2007 (view all comments by Zmrzlina)
Delightful read! A good deal of dry art history, mixed with astonishing 17th religious history (at least it was astonishing to me), stirred with charming British humour. There is a scene towards the end of the novel involving a car towing a trailer circling St. James Park that is just so absurd it begs for a setting of its own, performed on stage.

A real Bruegel was stolen from a museum in Paris when I was reading this fictional account of the very same artist's work. Made me remember I was reading something relating to Munch when The Scream was stolen. Perhaps I should alert art authorities when I read novels relating to Masters.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(6 of 11 readers found this comment helpful)

Product Details

ISBN:
9780312267469
Author:
Frayn, Michael
Publisher:
Picador USA
Location:
New York
Subject:
General
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Painting
Subject:
Country life
Subject:
England
Subject:
Humorous fiction
Subject:
Art auctions
Subject:
Art historians
Subject:
Lost works of art
Subject:
Historians of philosophy
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Humorous Stories
Subject:
Bruegel, Pieter
Edition Description:
First
Series:
Bestselling Backlist
Series Volume:
450
Publication Date:
September 2000
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
352
Dimensions:
8.30x5.53x.95 in. .70 lbs.

Other books you might like

  1. $5.75 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    Girl in Hyacinth Blue

    Susan Vreeland
  2. $1.25 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    Utz

    Bruce Chatwin
  3. $14.95 Used Hardcover add to wish list

    The Wasted Vigil

    Nadeem Aslam
  4. $8.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    When I Forgot

    Elina Hirvonen
  5. $9.50 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    Disgrace

    J M Coetzee
  6. $7.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    Earthly Joys

    Philippa Gregory

Related Aisles

  • back to top

Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.