The Fledgeling by Frances Faviel

The Fledgeling by Frances Faviel

'I can't go back. I'd rather die--I'd rather be dead.'

Neil Collins is going AWOL from his National Service - for the third time. Twice he has served time for previous desertions and been sent back, despite being hopelessly unsuited to military life. This time, terrorized by a bullying fellow soldier determined to escape himself, Neil intends to make his escape a permanent one. He heads to London, to the dreary, claustrophobic rooms where his twin sister, Nonie, and their dying grandmother live, periodically invaded by prying neighbours, a little girl who has befriended Mrs Collins, a curious social worker, and other uninvited visitors.

The Fledgeling (1958) traces the single day following Neil's desertion, and its impacts on Neil, Nonie, the tough-as-nails Mrs Collins, and others. Each of the characters comes vividly alive in Faviell's sensitive and observant prose. At times containing all the tension of a thriller, at others a profound drama of familial turmoil, Faviell's third and final novel is dramatic, compelling, and emotionally wrenching. This new edition features an afterword by Frances Faviell's son, John Parker, and additional supplementary material.

'A writer of unusual skill and delicacy in suggesting nuances of feeling and of character' Orville Prescott

'She writes with a sharpness of outline which would not shame Simenon.' J.W. Lambert, Sunday Times

Faviel, Frances: - Frances Faviell (1905-1959) was the pen name of Olivia Faviell Lucas, painter and author. She studied at the Slade School of Art in London under the aegis of Leon Underwood. In 1930 she married a Hungarian academic and travelled with him to India where she lived for some time at the ashram of Rabindranath Tagore, and visiting Nagaland. She then lived in Japan and China until having to flee from Shanghai during the Japanese invasion. She met her second husband Richard Parker in 1939 and married him in 1940. She became a Red Cross volunteer in Chelsea during the Phoney War. Due to its proximity to the Royal Hospital and major bridges over the Thames Chelsea was one of the most heavily bombed areas of London. She and other members of the Chelsea artists' community were often in the heart of the action, witnessing or involved in fascinating and horrific events throughout the Blitz. Her experiences of the time were later recounted in the memoir A Chelsea Concerto (1959). After the war, in 1946, she went with her son, John, to Berlin where Richard had been posted as a senior civil servant in the post-war British Administration (the CCG). It was here that she befriended the Altmann Family, which prompted her first book The Dancing Bear (1954), a memoir of the Occupation seen through the eyes of both occupier and occupied. She later wrote three novels, A House on the Rhine (1955), Thalia (1957), and The Fledgeling (1958). These are now all available as Furrowed Middlebrow books.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781911413851
ISBN 10	1911413856
Title	The Fledgeling
Author	Faviell Frances
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Dean Street Press Limited
Year published	2016-10-03
Number of pages	210
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.