The Man Who Went Down With His Ship
By (Author) Hugh Fleetwood
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
21st November 2013
Main
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
823.914
Paperback
274
Width 135mm, Height 216mm, Spine 16mm
358g
The Man Who Went Down with His Ship (1988) finds Hugh Fleetwood moving from Manhattan and Paris to winter-bound London, from Tuscany and Sardinia to Mexico and Egypt. Yet wherever his characters roam, their fate awaits them like the proverbial appointment in Samarra. In the title story, poet Alfred Albers attempts to confront with honesty an event from his past that has always haunted him, only to learn anew that no good deed goes unpunished. In 'The Nature of Angels' Maria longs for deliverance from a life made moribund, but is finally forced to ponder exactly what kind of power would answer our prayersThis edition includes two later Fleetwood stories: 'L & I' and 'Why Are You Wearing My Daughter's Earrings' '[Fleetwood] reaches down and stirs with venomous delight the nameless, faceless things swimming far below the level of consciousness.' Scotsman
Hugh Fleetwood was born in Chichester, Sussex, in 1944. Aged 21 he moved to Italy and lived there for fourteen years, during which time he exhibited his paintings and wrote a number of novels and story collections, originally published by Hamish Hamilton, beginning with A Painter of Flowers (1972). His second novel, The Girl Who Passed for Normal (1973), won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. His fifth, The Order of Death (1977), was adapted into a 1983 film starring Harvey Keitel and John Lydon. In 1978 he published his first collection of short stories, The Beast. Subsequent collections have included Fictional Lives (1980) and The Man Who Went Down With His Ship (1988). He currently lives in London, and continues to work both as writer and painter.