Synopses & Reviews
In 1909, sixteen-year-old Nell Golightly is a housemaid at a popular tea garden near Cambridge University, and Rupert Brooke, a new tenant, is already causing a stir with his boyish good looks and habit of swimming naked in nearby Byron's Pool. Despite her good sense, Nell seems to be falling under the radical young poet's spell, even though Brooke apparently adores no one but himself. Could he ever love a housemaid? Is he, in fact, capable of love at all?
Jill Dawson's The Great Lover imaginatively and playfully gives new voice to Rupert Brooke through the poet's own words and through the remembrances of the spirited Nell. An extraordinary novel, it powerfully conveys the allure of charisma as it captures the mysterious and often perverse workings of the human heart.
Synopsis
In her old age, Nell Golightly receives a strange letter. A Tahitian woman, claiming to be the daughter of the poet Rupert Brooke, writes to ask her to describe him. And to explain why all of England remembered him. Turning her mind to the summer of 1909, Nell relives her first encounter with the young poet. She was sixteen, the new housemaid at the Orchard Tea Rooms in Grantchester, and he was the new tenant. Nell soon realizes that everyone he meets falls in love with him, while he remains flippant and flirtatious and, apparently, loves no one but himself. Worst of all, despite her good sense, even she seems to be falling under his spell...
Synopsis
“A brilliant, complicated man is the centre of Jill Dawsons
The Great Lover, and while she draws extensively on historical records of Brooke and his contemporaries, it is her decisions as a novelist that make this account of his life fascinating as well as faithful. . . . . The story that emerges is strong, satisfying, and memorable.” —
The Times (London)
An imaginative, fascinating novel about one of the most enduringly popular and romantic figures of the First World War—the radical, handsome young poet Rupert Brooke.
About the Author
Jill Dawson is the author of Trick of the Light, Magpie, Fred and Edie, which was short-listed for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize, Wild Boy, Watch Me Disappear, which was long-listed for the Orange Prize, The Great Lover, and Lucky Bunny. She has edited six anthologies of short stories and poetry, and has written for numerous UK publications, including The Guardian, The Times, Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar. She lives in Norfolk with her husband and two sons.