Book description
Following in the wake of his highly praised first two books, Jonathan
Buckley's 'Ghost MacIndoe' is a bold and ambitious novel that focuses on
the life of Alexander MacIndoe, a self-centred man who is characterised
only by his physical beauty and a complete lack of will.
Jonathan Buckley's third novel opens with Alexander MacIndoe's earliest
memory: a February morning in 1944, in the aftermath of the second wave
of German air-raids. Set mainly in London and Brighton, Ghost MacIndoe
is the story of the next fifty-four years of Alexander's life. We meet
his glamorous mother and his father, a pioneering plastic surgeon; a
traumatised war veteran called Mr Beckwith with whom Alexander works for
several years as a gardener and, most important of all, the orphaned
Megan Beckwith, whose relationship with Alexander crystallises into a
romance in the 1970s. In the wake of his highly praised first two
novels, Jonathan Buckley's third miraculously brings into being one
simple life and the last sixty years of English history. 'The mood is
subdued, but the accumulated effect of his descriptions is deceptively
powerful…Although “Ghost MacIndoe” celebrates the virtues of
self-possession, it is as a meditation on the nature of memory itself
that it makes its most lasting impression.' Sunday Times
'Elegiac, beautifully written and compelling. Buckley's novel is a fine
achievement.' Christina Koning, The Times
'The story is lifted by Buckley's exceptionally vivid powers of
description. It is the work of a writer of considerable talent.' Melissa
Denes, Sunday Telegraph
'The quality of attention Jonathan Buckley brings to his material
deserves to be called poetic…his story makes a good deal of other
contemporary fiction look empty.' Sean O'Brien, TLS Jonathan Buckley
lives in Greenwich, London. He is the author of two previous novels. The
Biography of Thomas Lang was published in 1997 and Xerxes in 1999.
