Book description
When his former colleague Peter Sullivan dies, the narrator of
Childish Loves inherits his life's work - a number of fragmentary
manuscripts about the life of Lord Byron. Fascinated by his prose -
and intrigued by the rather sinister rumours surrounding Peter's life,
including whispers of an inappropriate liaision with a young boy - he
has the manuscripts published and then sets out to discover whether
the reimagining of Byron's lost memoires can provide a key to
Sullivan's own elusive life and tarnished reputation. Acting as a
literary sleuth, he sorts through boxes of Sullivan's writing; reads
between the lines of his scandalous, Byron-inspired stories; meets
with the Society for the Publication of the Dead; and tracks down
people from Peter's past in an effort to untangle rumour from reality.
In the process, he crafts a masterful story-within-a-story that turns
on uncomfortable questions about childhood and sexual awakening,
innocence and attraction, while exploring the lives of three very
different writers and their brushes with success and failure in both
literature and life.
Benjamin Markovits grew up in Texas, London and Berlin. He left
an unpromising career as a professional basketball player to study the
Romantics. Since then he has taught high school English, edited a
left-wing cultural magazine and written essays, stories and reviews
for, among other publications, The New York Times, The Guardian, The
London Review of Books and the Paris Review. He has written four
previous novels, The Syme Papers, Either Side of Winter, Imposture and
A Quiet Adjustment. Markovits has lived in London since 2000 and is
married with a daughter and a son. He teaches creative writing at
Royal Holloway, University of London.
