by KirstyGunn (Author), Kirsty Gunn (Author)
'Alright' I said, 'I'll try...' This is how Emily Stuart opens her intricate tale of a classic love affair that becomes Caroline's Bikini: a swirling cocktail of infatuation, obsession, and imagination. The moment that Emily's friend Evan Gordonstone - a successful middle-aged financier - meets Caroline Beresford - a glamorous former horsewoman, and now housewife, hostess, and landlady - there is a 'PING!' At least, that's how Evan describes it to Emily when he persuades her to record his story: the story of falling into unrequited love, which is as old as Western literature itself. Thus begins a hypnotic series of conversations set against the beguiling backdrop of West London's bars, fuelled in intensity by endless G&Ts and Q&As. From the depths of mid-winter to July's hot swelter, Emily's narration of Evan's passion for Caroline will take him to the brink of his own destruction. Written in a voice so playful, so charismatic, and so thoughtfully aware of the responsibilities of fiction it can only be by Kirsty Gunn, Caroline's Bikini is a swooning portrait of courtly love - in a modern world not celebrated for its restraint and abstraction. Ready. Steady. Go!
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Edition: Main
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 21 Jun 2018
ISBN 10: 0571339328
ISBN 13: 9780571339327
Book Overview: A gorgeously intoxicating new novel about the nature of love from the award-winning author of The Big Music.
Gunn has written a blissfully anarchic and inspiring novel about the futility of writing; a delightful paradox in itself. --Literary Review
[Her writing is] a perfect, witty riposte to that casual dismissal, and a lesson in how much goes on beneath the surface of everyday life ... Gunn traces hidden emotional topographies with insight and attentiveness to form and language which marks her previous work ... delicate, unsettling and revelatory. --Observer
An author of undeniable talent. --Sunday Times
Gunn has always been a notably original writer ... Her writing is extraordinarily controlled, rich, and melodic ... --Guardian