Red Heaven

(Paperback)

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Description

Red Heaven is the story of a childs journey to adulthood, his loss of those he loves and his fixing of them in memory. It begins in the late 1960s in Switzerland, as the boys ideas about life are being shaped by two rival influences.

These are his so-called auntsimperious, strong-willed, ambitiousboth exiles, at the mercy of outside political events; both determined to make the boy into their own heir, an inheritor of their values. In self-contained episodes, each set in an alpine grand hotel, we see one aunt and then the other educate their protg.

Serghiana, the red princess, is the daughter of a Soviet general, a producer of films and worshipper of art, a true believer. Ady, a former actress and singer, is a dilettante and cynic, Viennese, married to a great conductor: in her eyes, all is surface, truth a mere illusion.

Memory and nostalgiathe aunts gifts to the boy, gifts of obligationare the purest expression of love allowed them. Gradually he comes to understand the shadows in their past. Their stories stay with him, guiding his path through adolescence, until he can absorb the influences of the wider world.

Red Heaven is about the people who make us what we are: how they come into our lives, affect us, then depart the stage. This fiction, alive to the elusive beauties and sadnesses of the world, is Nicolas Rothwells finest achievement.

Reviews

A caster of spells. -- Australian Book Review
Hugely impressive.' -- Guardian
'Remarkable.' -- Age
'A weird and wonderful writer.' -- Australian
Melancholy, singular, exhilarating. -- Delia Falconer
Rothwells writing resists easy description. He roams the borderlands between memoir and fiction and insinuates himself into gaps between time and placeHis prose is lush and often beautiful. -- Weekend Australian on Belomor
OutstandingRomantic, dramatic, intelligent, cultured, enigmatic, cinematicRothwell walks alongside W. G. Sebald, Bruce Chatwin and Teju Cole[Red Heaven] made me feel alive as I read. * Australian *
Red Heaven is the account, rendered on a grand scale by the most exquisite and enigmatic figure in contemporary Australian literature, of how one boy grew out of his tangled inheritance and found his own. * Saturday Paper *
Nicolas Rothwell is exquisite, a writer whose work is hung with the insignia of the worlds art and literature. He is a cultivated writerRed Heaven is a book that will fascinate the literary seeker. * Peter Craven, Age *
A work of genuine intellectual exploration, original and provocative. * Australian Book Review *
An engrossing novel of ideas. * Glyn Davis, ABR Books of the Year 2021 *
Full of literary parallels, symbols and ideasRed Heaven stretches the boundaries of fictionI enjoyed Rothwells attention to the history of ideas and admired the rich character development. * Historical Novel Society *
Red Heaven is a dazzling novel for the agesa novel that transcends time and place. * Judges comments for the 2022 Prime Minister's Literary Awards *

Author Bio

Nicolas Rothwell lives in Far North Queensland and is a former foreign correspondent. His award-winning books include The Red Highway, Belomor and, most recently, Quicksilver.