Book description
Overweight and overwrought, Howard Cleaver, London's most successful
journalist, abruptly abandons home, partner, mistresses and above all
television, the instrument that brought him identity and power. It is
the autumn of 2004 and Cleaver has recently enjoyed the celebrity
attending his memorable interview with the President of the United
States and suffered uncomfortable scrutiny following the publication
of his elder son's novelised autobiography. He flies to Milan and
heads deep into the South Tyrol, fetching up in the village of
Luttach. His quest: to find a remote mountain hut, to get beyond the
reach of email, and the mobile phone, and the interminable clamour of
the public voice.
Weeks later, snowed in at five thousand feet, harangued by voices
from the past and humiliated by his inability to understand the
Tyrolese peasants he relies on for food and whisky, Cleaver discovers
that there is nowhere so noisy and so dangerous as the solitary mind.
Born in Manchester, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at
Cambridge and Harvard. In 1981 he moved to Italy where he has lived ever
since. He is the author of novels, non-fiction and essays, including
Europa,
Cleaver
,
A Season with Verona
and
Teach Us to Sit Still
. He has won the Somerset Maugham, Betty Trask and Llewellyn Rhys
awards, and been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He lectures on
literary translation in Milan, writes for publications such as the
New Yorker
and the
New York Review of Books
, and his many translations from the Italian include works by Moravia,
Calvino, Calasso, Tabucchi and Machiavelli.
