Synopses & Reviews
From the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of
Birdsong, new fiction about love and war — five transporting stories and five unforgettable lives, linked across centuries.
In Second World War Poland, a young prisoner closes his eyes and pictures going to bat on a sunlit English cricket ground.
Across the yard of a Victorian poorhouse, a man is too ashamed to acknowledge the son he gave away.
In a 19th-century French village, an old servant understands — suddenly and with awe — the meaning of the Bible story her master is reading to her.
On a summer evening in the Catskills in 1971, a skinny girl steps out of a Chevy with a guitar and with a song that will send shivers through her listeners' skulls.
A few years from now, in Italy, a gifted scientist discovers links between time and the human brain and between her lover's novel and his life.
Throughout the five masterpieces of fiction that make up A Possible Life, exquisitely drawn and unforgettable characters risk their bodies, hearts and minds in pursuit of the manna of human connection. Between soldier and lover, parent and child, servant and master, and artist and muse, important pleasures and pains are born of love, separations and missed opportunities. These interactions — whether successful or not — also affect the long trajectories of characters' lives.
Provocative and profound, Sebastian Faulks's dazzling new novel journeys across continents and centuries not only to entertain with superb old-fashioned storytelling but to show that occasions of understanding between humans are the one thing that defines us — and that those moments, however fluid, are the one thing that endures.
Review
“It unsettles, it moves, and it forces us to question who we are.” The Sunday Times (London)
Review
“Distinctively moving....These stories sneak up on you, gently ingratiate themselves, get you settled in comfortably, and then batter your heart. Startling and strange, the sort of unsettling insight one gets from the finest of Flannery O'Connor's work.” The Washington Post
Review
“Read this brilliant, deeply affecting book, and enjoy a master storyteller at work....Faulk's works a kind of magic on the page.” The Dallas Morning News
Review
“Not unlike what David Mitchell did in Cloud Atlas...this book transcends pat tropes through the beauty and clarity of Faulkss prose. Each world is drawn with precision, creating widely varied stories that are intensely absorbing....Highly recommended.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
“The chief pleasure in reading A Possible Life comes from feeling you can wander off with any of its characters and find a story every bit as real and compelling as what's on the page.” Los Angeles Times
Review
“Beautifully written....One could quibble over whether this is really a novel or a collection of stories, but that may be missing the point. For those of us who remember listening to music on albums, A Possible Life is most reminiscent of an LP — a gathering of distinct expressions that together make up a satisfying whole.” BookPage
Review
“These five stories are provocative meditations on love, loss, evil and what it means to be human, beautifully rendered by a prose master.” Shelf Awareness
Review
“A Possible Life is a rueful, pleasurable work, extremely sharp, with true insights into aging and loss." USA Today
Review
“Delicately crafted.” Kirkus
Synopsis
FIVE TRANSPORTING STORIES AND FIVE UNFORGETTABLE LIVES, LINKED ACROSS CENTURIES
Throughout this masterpiece of fiction, exquisitely drawn and unforgettable characters risk their bodies, hearts, and minds in pursuit of the manna of human connection. Between soldier and lover, parent and child, servant and master, and artist and muse, important pleasures and pains are born out of love, separations, and missed opportunities:
• Young Geoffrey Talbot meets dark-eyed Giselle in France during the Second World War. And his life veers off track forever.
• In a workhouse in Victorian London, Billy becomes lifelong companions with Alice — as well as with another girl.
• In rural France in the 1800s, orphaned Jeanne is devout and simpleminded, but still capable of making a tough decision about her affections.
• The brilliant twenty-first-century Italian scientist Elena Duranti collaborates on a startling discovery about human consciousness-and on an equally astonishing find about her only love.
• Long-haired and skinny Anya is an American singer-songwriter star in the 1970s. But how real is her life of guitars, lovers, stage fright, and travel if it is, foremost, raw material for her songs?
Provocative and profound, Sebastian Faulks's dazzling new novel journeys across continents and centuries not only to entertain with superb old-fashioned storytelling but to show that occasions of understanding between humans are the one thing that defines us — and that those moments, however fluid, are the one thing that endures.
Synopsis
“Each of the stories could stand on its own, and together, they show off Faulks's versatility. Each of his characters has his or her own way of experiencing the world, and Faulks makes those different worlds realistically detailed and believable.” Columbus Dispatch
About the Author
Sebastian Faulks is the author of ten novels. They include the UK number one bestseller A Week in December; Human Traces; On Green Dolphin Street; Charlotte Gray, which was made into a film starring Cate Blanchett; and the classic Birdsong, which has sold more than three million copies and was recently adapted for television. In 2008, he was invited to write a James Bond novel, Devil May Care, to mark the centenary of Ian Fleming. In between books he wrote and presented the four-part television series Faulks on Fiction for the BBC. He lives in London with his wife and their three children.