Tom Bedlam by George Hagen
Growing up fatherless in Vauxhall in the 1860s and working in a porcelain factory, young Tom Bedlam doesn't have it easy. Yet he is a positive spirit, cunning in his pursuit of love and a steadfast friend. Everything changes when his perfidious father turns up, followed by the revelation that Tom had an older brother, who disappeared at birth. Tom's desire to find him and unite his family proves an elusive but compelling quest. Sent to a boarding school where he learns the power of the ambitious over the meek, Tom makes a Faustian pact that will haunt his adult life, as he strives to be the husband and parent his father was not. Ranging from London to South Africa, from the Boer War to the final months of the First World War, Tom Bedlam captures the spirit of the times as it portrays a man wrestling with his loyalties, affections and conscience -- until he realises that the simple bonds of family can prevail against human folly and the march of progress. Dramatic, whimsical and shot through with lively humour, this is a novel as beguiling as it is affecting.
'An imaginative exploration of self, loyalty and power' -- Big Issue 'A globe-trotting history of the early 20th century.. TOM BEDLAM zaps along very engrossingly. You'd have to make a special effort not to warm to it.' -- Daily Telegraph 'A terrific book and, for all its nutty improbabilities, in the end a bracingly sane one ... Say what you will about coincidences, TOM BEDLAM demonstrates that in the hands of a writer like George Hagen, they can help fiction fulfil its most basic responsibility: to make an impossibly large and dangerous world small enough to see whole.' -- New York Times Book Review
George Hagen was born in 1958 in Harare, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). His family later moved to Northern Rhodesia, then to England before settling in New Jersey. He studied film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and spent several years in Los Angeles as a screenwriter. He lives in New York City with his wife and three children. THE LAMENTS was published by Sceptre in September 2004.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780340752074 |
| ISBN 10 | 0340752076 |
| Title | Tom Bedlam |
| Author | George Hagen |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Year published | 2008-08-07 |
| Number of pages | 464 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |