Free US delivery on orders $35 or over
Please note that this product is not available for purchase from Bloomsbury websites.
You must sign in to add this item to your wishlist. Please sign in or create an account
Reggie Rainbow got his name at the orphanage. He had polio as a child, and seventeen years of using crutches have given him strong hands and nimble fingers. It is this dexterity, perfect for illusions, which first led Mr. Brookes to hire him for the act. Reggie has been a disappearance boy for years now, making a long string of alluring assistants vanish while Mr. Brookes tricks and misdirects the audience.
But in the spring of 1953, the public no longer seem interested in illusionists. Bookings are slim, even in London. When Mr. Brookes gets a new slot at the down-at-the-heel Brighton Grand, Reggie finds himself in a strange town, one full of dark and unexplored corners. And it is the arrival of Pamela Rose, a beautiful new assistant, that truly turns his life upside down. As the Grand's spectacular Coronation show nears, Reggie begins to wonder how much of his own life has been an act-and sets out to find somebody who disappeared from his life long ago.
Masterful and heartfelt, The Disappearance Boy is the tale of one young man coming into adulthood amidst the smoke-and-mirrors backstage world; a story of love, tears, and illusion-of all that stays behind the curtain.
Published | Oct 28 2014 |
---|---|
Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 288 |
ISBN | 9781620407271 |
Imprint | Bloomsbury USA |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
A precisely fashioned novel . . . Bartlett enmeshes such grand metaphorical gestures in meticulous period detail, lending his haunting story an air of undeniable truth.
The New York Times on Brooke Street
Bartlett's novel is a lush, sumptuous tapestry of mood and memory, and each ripple discloses new details and different insights as it evokes the gay life of London at a time when homoeroticism was a love that dare not speak its name.
Booklist on Brooke Street
A powerful and complex story of sexual obsession. . . . A profoundly original meditation on thwarted desire.
Patrick McGrath on Skin Lane
Can, in a moment, stop your heart, or break it . . . Deeply moving.
Times (UK) on Skin Lane
Brilliantly eerie . . . Neil Bartlett shows himself to be a master of withheld information . . . The novel captures vividly the atmosphere of the changing London of the 60s . . . But it's in his depiction of a specific kind of helpless and fearful love that Bartlett excels.
Paul Bailey, Guardian on Skin Lane
Your School account is not valid for the United States site. You have been logged out of your account.
You are on the United States site. Would you like to go to the United States site?
Error message.