A Fine & Private Place

(Paperback)

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Description

For nineteen years, Jonathan Rebeck has hidden from the world within the confines of the Bronxs Yorkchester Cemetery, making an abandoned mausoleum his secret home. He speaks with the newly dead as they pass from life to wherever spirits finally go, providing them with comfort, an understanding ear, and even the occasional game of chess.
But Mr. Rebecks reclusive life is soon to be disrupted. An impossible love has blossomed between two ghosts at Yorkchester Cemetery, and Rebeck finds himself drawn to a living woman. Helped along by a cynical raven and a mysterious security guard, these four souls must learn the true difference between life and death and make choices that really are forever.
Told with an elegiac wisdom, Peter S. Beagles first novel is a timeless work of fantasy, imbued with hope and wonder. This updated edition contains the authors final revisions and stands as the definitive version of an enduring modern classic.

Reviews

Praise for A Fine & Private Place


I first read A Fine and Private Place in 1970. It was my first introduction to the work of Peter S. Beagle. I was 18 years old. That I can still recall the opening scene so clearly is an indication that this book was a unique experience for me as a reader. I immediately followed this book by reading The Last Unicorn. A Fine and Private Place is a contemporary ghost story set in a cemetery, and The Last Unicorn is a lovely fantasy set in an alternate world. I recommend both of them without reservation.
Robin Hobb, author of Assassins Apprentice and Assassins Fate

"I can't think of a better book to buy for someone you love this holiday season."
Omnivoracious.com

One of literatures most beautiful works about ghostly times and places...told with wit, charm, and a sense of individuality.
New York Times Book Review

A Fine & Private Place is just as wonderful as I remembered it to be: beautifully written, the characters warmly drawn, the pages filled with conversations that run the gamut of the human condition.... Its a great book in a lovely affordable package.
Fantasy & Science Fiction

Both sepulchral and oddly appealing.... [Beagles] ectoplasmic fable has a distinct mossy charm.
TIME Magazine

Delightful!
San Francisco Chronicle

A sweet, sad, and smart novel about life, death and love...a book that has endured for a reason.
The Agony Column

A wonderful work of literature...a gem of a novel.
BookLoons

Over a cold beverage and a hot bowl of chili, Peter Beagle recently told me how he came to write A Fine & Private Place. He was just nineteen years old at the time, the length of time that Mr. Rebeck spent in that cemetery. He was working as a counselor at a boys summer camp. Once the campers were settled for the night there wasnt much for the counselors to do. Those who had sweethearts at the girls camp across the lake would borrow canoes and paddle across to see them. Peter had no such luck, he told me, so he warmed up his rattly little portable typewriter, cracked open a ream of paper, and starting writing a book. We are all incredibly lucky that Peter had no girlfriend that summer.
Dick Lupoff, SF Site

An amazing read.... If fantastically developed characters trapped between love and death appeal to you, this is a nearly perfect book.
Paperblog

Author Bio

Peter S. Beagle is the best-selling author of The Last Unicorn, which has sold a reported five million copies since its initial publication in 1968. His other novels include A Fine & Private Place, The Innkeepers Song, and Tamsin. His short fiction has been collected in four volumes by Tachyon Publications, including The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche, The Line Between, We Never Talk About My Brother, and Sleight of Hand. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Mythopoeic, and Grand Prix de lImaginaire awards as well as the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.