The Great Lover

By Jill Dawson
(Harper Perennial, Paperback, 9780061924361, 336pp.)

Publication Date: June 2010

Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Audio Cassette, Compact Disc, Compact Disc

Categories: General

Selected by Indie Booksellers for the June 2010 Indie Next List

“In 1909, Nell Golightly is a young maid in the employ of Rupert Brooke's mother. Alternating between the voices of Nell and Rupert, Jill Dawson (a poet herself) brings Rupert Brooke to life in this striking and affecting novel of the poet as a young man. This moving story sparked my interest Brooke's poetry as well as my interest in his short life and tragic death.”

-- Tova Beiser, Brown University Bookstore, Providence, RI

Description

In 1909, sixteen-year-old Nell Golightly is a housemaid at a popular tea garden near Cambridge University, and Rupert Brooke, a new tenant, is already causing a stir with his boyish good looks and habit of swimming naked in nearby Byron's Pool. Despite her good sense, Nell seems to be falling under the radical young poet's spell, even though Brooke apparently adores no one but himself. Could he ever love a housemaid? Is he, in fact, capable of love at all?

Jill Dawson's The Great Lover imaginatively and playfully gives new voice to Rupert Brooke through the poet's own words and through the remembrances of the spirited Nell. An extraordinary novel, it powerfully conveys the allure of charisma as it captures the mysterious and often perverse workings of the human heart.

About the Author

Jill Dawson is an award-winning poet and the author of five previous novels, including Fred and Edie, which was short-listed for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize. She lives in Cambridgeshire, England, with her husband and two sons.

Summer Titles That Will Transport You Into The Past

Thursday, Jun 3, 2010

Maureen Corrigan has booked an armchair getaway this summer with four books that will send her traveling through time. From turn-of-the-last-century New York tenements, to the 1939 World's Fair, to literary romance on the shores of Lake Geneva, these books will take you to places even the most luxurious vacations can't go. More at NPR.org

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