Self Help

by EdwardDocx (Author)

• Used

  Unabridged
  2008

  $3.29

  Alone in her native St Petersburg, Maria Glover sends an urgent summons to London and New York. Her son and daughter arrive too late to see her, but the end of their mother's life marks the beginning of their own story: one of secrets, strangers, and the ultimate retelling of everything they thought they knew.

  `Docx knows that what we want most from a novel are stories into which we can sink our teeth and our hearts. His ability to evoke the atmosphere of a city is almost Dickensian' Guardian

  `Full of insight: on the state of Russia, Britain and the US; and on the nature of music, addiction, love and sex. Funny and involving and the characters are often priceless' Metro

  `I was amazed at the detail of Docx's St Petersburg, with all its beauty and cruelty, similar to the style of Dostoevsky' Financial Times

  `Unforgettable. Not since What a Carve Up! has there been such an absorbing indictment of the family' Independent on Sunday

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $4.25

  He was relieved to be again among the Russians. Nothing to do with his head, or even his heart, but in his soul . . .

  Set between London and St. Petersburg, Self Help is the absorbing story of a family - half-English, half-Russian - with many secrets and a dark, disturbed history.

  Masha Glover returns home from exile, where she dies suddenly and alone. Her twins, Gabriel and Isabella, must come together and confront the contorted legacy of the past in the shape of their estranged, malevolent father, Nicholas, and the pitiless stranger, Arkady Artamenkov.

  Self Help is a beautifully written novel, alive with feeling, intelligence and dark humour, and always directly engaged with the modern world. In addressing the most elemental of contradictions - human nature and nurture; honesty and deception; what it means to live with integrity when so much is so easily discredited - it emerges as that rarest of discoveries: a truly gripping story.

• New

  Paperback
  2008

  $24.67