As a boy, Tom Bedlam grows up fatherless and poor in South London in the 1860s. But everything changes when Tom's wastrel of a father turns up; he discovers the existence of an older brother who disappeared at birth; and he is sent to boarding school. There he makes a Faustian pact that will haunt his adult life, as he strives to create the family he dreamed of in childhood and be the man his father was not. Ranging from London to South Africa, from the Boer War to the final months of the First World War, Tom Bedlam captures the spirit of the times as it portrays a beguiling hero wrestling with his loyalties, affections and conscience - until he realises that the simple bonds of family can prevail against human folly and the march of progress. Dramatic, whimsical and shot through with lively humour, this is a novel as entertaining as it is affecting.
When Howard and Julia Lament adopt Will, a baby secretly switched at birth in a bizarre hospital debacle, the Laments begin a journey which takes them from Northern Rhodesia to the Persian Gulf, England and suburban America, as they search for their place in the world. Howard is an engineer and dreamer, who studies the conveyance of liquids through valves. Julia is woman of fiery spirit and a passion for Shakespeare, who is constantly called upon to reinvent her family's life and her own. Will's twin brothers, Marcus and Julius, force Will to question his place in the family, and Will struggles to find a sense of his own identity through the characters he meets en route - from Ruth, his first love in Africa, who carries around a biscuit tin lid to admire her reflection to Dawn Snedecker, the lisping intellectual who breaks his heart in America. Through the Laments' restlessness, their responses to adversity, and especially their unwieldy love for one another, George Hagen draws a picture of every family that is funny, tragic, hopeful and true.
Continuing the adventures of Gabriel Finley, this middle grade fantasy weaves an emotionally rich narrative filled with intrigue and magic. With comparisons to beloved series like Harry Potter and His Dark Materials, it promises a captivating journey that explores themes of friendship, bravery, and the quest for knowledge. Readers can expect a blend of adventure and heartfelt moments as Gabriel navigates new challenges alongside his raven companion.
Meet the Laments—the affably dysfunctional globetrotting family at the center of George Hagen’s exuberant debut novel. Howard is an engineer who dreams of irrigating the Sahara and lives by the motto “Laments move!” His wife Julia is a fiery spirit who must balance her husband’s oddly peripatetic nature with unexpected aspirations of her own. And Will is the “waif with a paper-thin heart” who is given to Howard and Julia in return for their own child who has been lost in a bizarre maternity ward mishap. As Will makes his way from infancy to manhood in a family that careens from continent to continent, one wonders where the Laments will ever belong. In Bahrain, Howard takes a job with an oil company and young Will makes his first friend. But in short order he is wrenched off to another land, his mother’s complicated friendship with the American siren Trixie Howitzer causing the family to bolt. In Northern Rhodesia, during its last days as a white colony, the twin enfants terribles Marcus and Julius are born, and Will falls for the gardener’s daughter, a girl so vain that she admires her image in the lid of a biscuit tin. But soon the family’s life is upturned again, thie time by their neighbor Major Buck Quinn, with his suburban tirades against black self-rule. Envisioning a more civilized life on “the sceptered isle,” the Laments board an ocean liner bound for England. Alas, poor Will is greeted by the tribal ferocity of his schoolmates and a society fixated on the Blitz. No sooner has he succumbed to British pop culture in the guise of mop-top Sally Byrd and her stacks of 45s, than the Laments uproot themselves once again, and it’s off to New Jersey, where life deals crisis and opportunity in equal measure. Undeniably eccentric, the Laments are also universal. Every family moves on in life. Children grow up, things are left behind; there is always something to lament. Through the Lament’s restlessness, responses to adversity, and especially their unwieldy love for one another, George Hagen gives us a portrait of every family that is funny, tragic, and improbably true. <i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>
De l'Afrique du Sud aux Etats-Unis, en passant par la Rhodésie et l'Angleterre, des années cinquante aux années soixante-dix. Les Lament forment une famille globe-trotteuse. Le père, Howard, est ingénieur et rêve de trouver un système d'irrigation pour le Sahara. Julia, son épouse, s'attache à trouver l'équilibre entre la bougeotte de son mari et ses propres aspirations. Premier roman.
