Book description
Three months after returning to England, Christopher Burton, receives
a phone-call at the reception desk of the Rembrandt Hotel,
Knightsbridge that informs him of his son's suicide. But why on
receiving this terrible news, does Burton immediately decide that he
must leave his Italian wife of thirty years standing? Why does he find
it so difficult to focus on his grief for his son?
Intensely dramatic, dark and, against all odds, hilariously funny,
Destiny is a satisfying story and a profound meditation on
marriage and identity. Parks gives us a frightening experience of what
it means to tread the narrow line between sanity and psychosis.
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.
