Book description
WINNER OF THE 2005 MAN BOOKER PRIZE When art historian Max Morden
returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday,
he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma.
The Grace family had appeared that long-ago summer as if from another
world. Mr and Mrs Grace, with their worldly ease and candour, were
unlike any adults he had met before. But it was his contemporaries, the
Grace twins Myles and Chloe, who most fascinated Max. He grew to know
them intricately, even intimately, and what ensued would haunt him for
the rest of his years and shape everything that was to follow. Praise
for The Sea: 'With his fastidious wit and exquisite style, John Banville
is the heir to Nabokov. The Sea [is] his best novel so far . . .
Banville's prose is sublime' Daily Telegraph 'This is a novel in which
all Banville's remarkable gifts come together to produce a real work of
art, disquieting, disturbing, beautiful, intelligent, and in the end,
surprisingly, offering consolation' Allan Massie, Scotsman 'The Sea is a
beautiful novel, challenging and richly rewarding . . . It is a comfort
to know that we have a lord of language among us' Gerry Dukes, Irish
Independent Biographies John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in
1945. He is the author of thirteen previous novels including The Book of
Evidence, which was shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prize. He has
received a literary award from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in
Dublin.
