The Heat of the Sun

(, Export/Airside)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

When recently orphaned Woodley Sharpless encounters Ben Pinkerton -- known to all as 'Trouble' -- for the first time at the exclusive Blaze Academy, he is instantly enraptured. They are polar opposites; Ben is exotic and daring; Woodley is bookish and frail, yet their lives quickly become inextricably intertwined. First at school, then in the staccato days of twenties New York, Woodley sees flashes of another person in his friend and slowly discovers a side of Ben's nature that belies a dark and hidden history. As the curtain falls on the frivolity of the twenties and rises to reveal the cruelty of a new decade, Woodley and Ben's friendship begins to fragment. Over the coming years the two men meet intermittently; in Japan before the outbreak of the Second World War and then in the midst of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Change in both their lives, their relationship and their suffering, stand for a generation; one dispersed by depression and upheaval, brutality and confusion. David Rain's novel, The Heat of the Sun, is an ambitious and assured debut that captures perfectly two friends, two loves: two lives.

Reviews

The more I read The Heat of the Sun, the more I admired it: for its imaginative reach, its emotional power, and the lit-up beauty and exactitude of its writing. I thought it breathtakingly good.

Author Bio

David Rain grew up in Mount Gambier, South Australia and now lives in London. Formerly a lecturer in English Literature at Queen's University, Belfast, he presently runs the MA Creative Writing degree at Middlesex University.