Revue de presse :
Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize
A Barnes and Noble's Discover Great New Writers pick of 2015
PRAISE FOR THE DYNAMITE ROOM:
"Wow. Wonderful."--Chris Cleave, author of Little Bee and Gold
"Suspenseful and powerful. A novel of great humanity that exposes the absurd contradictions of war."--Samantha Harvey, author of The Wilderness, short-listed for the Orange Prize and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize
"Superb. Absorbing, suspenseful and with a beautifully poetic touch."--Nathan Filer, author of the Costa Award-winning The Shock of the Fall
"Clever and unsettling, this most unconventional of war stories had me totally gripped."--Shelley Harris, author of Jubilee
"An effective psychological drama between two extraordinary characters. Claustrophobic, touching, character-driven, and told in lovely prose...Readers who loved The Boy in the Striped Pajamas will have a strong affinity with The Dynamite Room."--Katie Ward, author of Girl Reading
"The Dynamite Room grabs you from the outset and refuses to let you go. Whilst building strong psychological tension between the two characters, it still skillfully achieves empathy, ultimately, for both. A compelling, powerful and humane book."--Judith Allnatt, author of The Moon Field
"With its unshowy, confident prose, this novel is accomplished, resonant and surprising, and poses some delicately handled questions about whether redemption is possible, and at what point a good heart becomes forever besmirched."--Jill Dawson, Guardian
"Ambitious and often gripping...Hewitt has a strong sense of narrative pace and brings a strange poetry to his depiction of an exhausted and empty world...A very promising first novel."--Observer (UK)
"As powerfully visualized as a screenplay... Hewitt handles this complicated narrative with assurance, juggling the reader's sympathies while adding crumbs of information, all the while pitting Heiden's tarnished ideals against Lydia's vulnerability. A sense of theatricality pervades the contemporary scenes--small cast, stifling domestic setting--but these are usefully crafted in the closing pages to deliver a jolting finale. An unusual, intricate drama delivered with accomplishment."--Kirkus Reviews
"[A] strong debut...well-crafted and engrossing. In the confines of a house that can feel at once claustrophobic and expansive, he artfully explores family and identity, and how war changes the lives of both soldiers and civilians."
―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Quatrième de couverture :
It was all her doing. She had cried wolf, and the wolf had come.
July, 1940. 11 year-old Lydia walks through a village in rural Suffolk on a baking hot day. She is wearing a gas mask. The shops and houses are empty, windows boarded up and sandbags green with mildew; the village is deserted. Leaving it behind, she strikes off down a country lane to a large Edwardian house - the house she grew up in. But Lydia finds it empty too, the windows covered in black-out blinds. Her family are gone.
Late that night he comes, a soldier, gun in hand and heralding a full-blown German invasion. He is part of a reconnaissance mission, heralding a full-blown German invasion. There are, he explains to her, certain rules she must now abide by. He won't hurt Lydia, but she cannot leave the house.
Is he telling the truth? What is he looking for? Why is he so familiar? And how does he already know Lydia's name?
Eerie, thrilling and piercingly sad, The Dynamite Room evokes the great tradition of war classics yet achieves a strikingly original and contemporary resonance. Hypnotically compelling, it explores, in the most extreme of circumstances, the bonds we share that make us human.
Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.