Noonday - Couverture souple

Barker, Pat

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0241966035 ISBN 13 : 9780241966037

Editeur : Penguin, 2016

A propos du livre

Extrait :

CHAPTER ONE:

Elinor was halfway up the drive when she sensed she was being watched. She stopped and scanned the upstairs windows—wide open in the heat as if the house were gasping  for breath—but there was nobody looking down. Then, from the sycamore tree at the end of the gar- den, came a rustling  of leaves. Oh, of course: Kenny. She was tempted to ignore him, but that seemed unkind, so she went across the lawn and peered up into the branches.
  “Kenny?”

No reply. There was often no reply.

Kenny had arrived almost a year ago now, among the first batch of evacuees, and, although this area had since been reclassified—“neutral” rather than “safe”—here he remained. She felt his gaze heavy on the top of her head, like a hand, as she stood squinting up into the late-afternoon sunlight.

Kenny spent  hours up there, not reading his comics, not building a tree house, not dropping conkers on people’s heads—no, just watching. He had a red notebook in which he wrote down car numbers, the time people arrived, the time they left . . . Of course, you forgot what it was like to be his age: probably every visitor was a German spy. Oh, and he ate himself, that was the other thing. He was forever nibbling his fingernails, tearing at his cuticles, picking scabs off his knees and licking up the blood. Even pulling hair out of his head and sucking it. And, despite being a year at the village school, he hadn’t made friends. But then, he was the sort of child who attracts bullying, she thought, guiltily conscious of her own failure to like him.
  “Kenny? Isn’t it time for tea?”

Then, with a great crash of leaves  and branches, he dropped at her feet and stood looking up at her, scowling, for all the world like a small, sour, angry crab apple.

“Where’s Paul?”

“I’m afraid he couldn’t come, he’s busy.”

“He’s always busy.”

“Well, yes, he’s got a lot to do. Are you coming in now?” Evidently that didn’t deserve a reply.

He turned his back on her and ran off through the arch into the kitchen garden.

Revue de presse :

“Powerful. . . . Searing. . . . Noonday gives us bravery among the ruins.” —NPR  

“Gripping. . . . Compelling. . . . Barker is at the height of her historicist powers.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“Powerful and compassionate. . . . A fine and satisfying novel.” —Financial Times
 
“[A] sweeping panorama.” —The New Yorker

“Searing. . . . [Barker] grounds Noonday with historical fact and offers telling physical detail. . . . Glimmering moments like these make fans look forward to what Barker will write next.” —The Miami Herald

“Compelling. . . . Weaves narrative and reportage so skillfully, you don't realize how much empathy you're suffering; you're too busy being involved in what's happening. . . . Another fine work by a great writer.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Picks up an irresistible momentum. . . . First-rate.” —Newsday

“Vivid. . . . Evocative. . . . Noonday does a magnificent job of bringing to life the rain of death London experienced in 1940.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A novel of sure-footed storytelling. . . .  The mindless destruction of the capital is simultaneously apocalyptic and beautiful, inhibiting and rich with opportunity. Ideas, emotions and attitudes prove as fragile—and as flammable—as the physical landscape.” —The New Statesman

“Impressive. . . . Bristl[es] with period detail and gritty, well-researched atmosphere.” —The Observer (London)

“Intelligent, uncompromising. . . . Searingly re-creates a wartime landscape. . . . Barker is as subtle and tough-minded here about human nature as in all her work. Yet the closing pages suggest the possibility of new beginnings even as they acknowledge the permanence of old wounds.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Penguin
• Date d'édition: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0241966035
• ISBN 13: 9780241966037
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 272