Book description
'An unknown place.' This was what Michael Frayn's children called
the shadowy landscape of the past from which their family had emerged.
In this book he sets out to rediscover that lost land before all trace
of it finally disappears beyond recall. As he tries to see it through
the eyes his parents and the others who shaped his life, he comes to
realise how little he ever knew or understood about them. This is
above all the story of his father, the quick-witted boy from a poor
and struggling family, who overcame so many disadvantages and
shouldered so many burdens to make a go of his life; who found
happiness, had it snatched away from him in a single instant, and in
the end, after many difficulties, perhaps found it again. Father and
son were in some odd ways ridiculously alike, in others ridiculously
different; and the journey back down the corridors of time is
sometimes comic, sometimes painful, as Michael Frayn comes to see how
much he has inherited from his father - and makes one or two
surprising discoveries about both of them along the way . . .
Michael Frayn was born in London in 1933 and began his career as
a journalist on the Guardian and the Observer. His novels include
Towards the End of the Morning, and A Landing on the Sun. Headlong
(1999) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, while his most recent
novel, Spies (2002), won the Whitbread Novel Award. His fifteen plays
range from Noises Off to Copenhagen and most recently Afterlife. He is
married to the writer Claire Tomalin.
