infinitely more welcoming than the stillness of the empty house.”Īfter a sympathetic man his father’s age offers to guess from his accent which part of London he’s from-a successful party trick-Tristan relaxes a bit. We realize we are reading the recollections of an elderly writer, seeing in his mind’s eye his younger self, his writing career beginning in “the clamour of the crowded public house. While his room is being “thoroughly cleaned,” Tristan goes to a nearby pub, where the narrative switches to the present. Tristan cannot check into his hotel after an incident the previous night involving a man, a boy, and the police. Boyne’s calm, measured prose erupts from time to time in bursts of unexpected shock, like exploding shells. “I had disgraced myself,” he realizes, as the lady’s expression turns to ice.ĭisgrace, we discover, has been central to Tristan’s young life. On the train “the elderly lady in the fox-fur shawl was recalling some of the murders she had committed over the years.” Turns out she’s a famous mystery writer, and Tristan commits a faux pas by suggesting she switch publishers to the firm where he’s employed. Yet from the start, things are off-kilter. A First World War veteran spills his secrets in this novel by Irish writer John Boyne ( The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.) As Tristan Sadler travels from London to Norwich to return his dead friend’s letters to the sister who wrote them, he appears tense, although his task seems straightforward enough.
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