Chris Power Knihy

An “extraordinary” (The Sunday Times) debut of unnerving beauty, Chris Power’s short story collection Mothers evokes the magic and despair of the essential human longing for purpose. Chris Power’s stories are peopled by men and women who find themselves at crossroads or dead ends—characters who search without knowing what they seek. Their paths lead them to thresholds, bridges, rivers, and sites of mysterious, irresistible connection to the past. A woman uses her mother’s old travel guide, aged years beyond relevance, to navigate on a journey to nowhere; a stand-up comic with writer’s block performs a fateful gig at a cocaine-fueled bachelor party; on holiday in Greece, a father must confront the limits to which he can keep his daughters safe. Braided throughout is the story of Eva, a daughter, wife, and mother, whose search for a self and place of belonging tracks a devastating path through generations. Ranging from remote English moors to an ancient Swedish burial ground to a hedonistic Mexican wedding, the stories in Mothers lay bare the emotional and psychic damage of life, love, and abandonment. Suffused with yearning, Power’s transcendent prose expresses a profound ache for vanished pasts and uncertain futures.

Robert is a struggling writer living in Berlin with his wife and two young daughters. One night he meets Patrick, an enigmatic stranger with a sensational story to tell: a ghostwriter for a Russian oligarch - recently found hanged - who is now being followed. But is he really in danger? Patrick's life strikes Robert as a fabrication, but one that comes to obsess him. He decides to use the other man, and his story. An elegant and atmospheric twist on the cat-and-mouse narrative, A Lonely Man is a novel of shadows, of the search for identity and the elastic nature of truth. As his association with Patrick hurtles towards tragedy, Robert must decide: are actual events the only things that give a story life, and are some stories too dangerous to tell?

The first novel by the acclaimed author of Mothers - a deft, delicate inquisition of identity and ambition, and a daring act of fiction.

Sind manche Geschichten zu gefährlich, um sie zu erzählen? Robert, ein britischer Expat, ist Schriftsteller und lebt mit seiner Frau und seinen beiden Töchtern in Berlin. Zufällig macht er die Bekanntschaft von Patrick, auch er Brite, doch keineswegs so fest im bürgerlichen Leben verankert wie Robert. Als ehemaliger Ghostwriter des ermordeten russischen Oligarchen Sergei Vanyashin, einem Feind des Kreml, fühlt sich Patrick verfolgt und bedroht. Robert hält Patrick für paranoid, ist gleichwohl fasziniert von dessen Geschichte, und sieht in ihr die Chance, seine Schreibblockade zu überwinden. Dann geschehen seltsame Dinge. Aber Robert klammert sich an den Glauben, weiterhin in der sogenannten Normalität zu leben. Hält seinen Glauben für Vernunft, Roberts Geschichte für die Einbildung eines verwirrten Geistes. Die Schattenwelt, die Patrick beschreibt, mag existieren, aber er ist doch kein Teil davon. Oder doch? "Mit der Präzision einer Patricia Highsmith entführt uns Chris Power in die Welten John Le Carrés, wie sie durch die Brille der Autofiktion einer Rachel Cusk erscheinen würden." The Spectator