Book description
Wilbur McCrum has always been a drifter. Abandoned by his parents, one
after the other, and subsequently passed from pillar to post, he was
still a young lad when he first took to the road, and somehow he's never
settled anywhere since. When he meets Ida May, however, that looks set
to change: finally, Wilbur's dream of making a home, a family, and a
future for himself, looks set to become reality. But fate's a funny old
thing, and Wilbur never has had much luck . . . 'With a hugely likeable
narrator, and a narrative that gallops along at the breakneck pace of a
runaway steer, I loved the energy of the writing, and the way the world
of the Wild West is painted so clearly in swift, deft strokes. A
terrific and unusual voice' Kate Long 'Kita's gold-rush setting
incorporates all the dusty heroism of the Wild West. But Wilbur McCrum
is the book's truly unforgettable element. His folksy speech and wry
humour are engaging and unrelenting, taking the reader from a troubled
childhood to an old age of reminiscence. Few first novels have employed
imaginative freedom and picaresque invention with such aplomb'
Waterstone's Books Quarterly
Bronia Kita has won various prizes for her writing -- including the
Mail on Sunday Novel Competition in 2000, which is what
initially persuaded her to switch from writing short stories to longer
fiction -- and recently completed an MA in Creative Writing. The
Swansong of Wilbur McCrum is her first novel. She lives in
London.
