Damascus
  • Published: 22 November 2018
  • ISBN: 9781448129997
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320

Damascus

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'One of the most ingenious, resourceful and entertaining novelists in England' Philip Hensher

A love story, in which all the events, people and places are taken from the contents of the "The Times" of 1st November, 1993.

'It's the last day of the holidays and Spencer Kelly (12) wants to hold Hazel Burns (12) by the hand. This is the meaning of life. He wants to sit beside her on a sand dune and hold her hand and then kiss her. Just kissing, in a nice way, on her cheek perhaps and then a little bit at the top of her arms- If he can kiss her this once then he'll always have kissed her, and everything which follows will be different. It's to be the one moment which instantly changes everything.'
  • Published: 22 November 2018
  • ISBN: 9781448129997
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320
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About the author

Richard Beard

Richard Beard is the author of Acts of the Assassins which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and most recently, The Day That Went Missing. In the twenty years since his first book he has published critically acclaimed novels and narrative non-fiction, including Becoming Drusilla, the story of how a friendship between two men was changed by a gender transition. He was formerly director of the National Academy of Writing in London, and is now a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo and has a Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. He is an optimistic opening batsman for the Authors Cricket Club.

Also by Richard Beard

Sad Little Men
How to Beat the Australians
The Day That Went Missing
Acts of the Assassins
Lazarus Is Dead
Becoming Drusilla
Dry Bones
See all

Praise for Damascus

Beard is a talented writer, crafting many scenes with luminous precision

Time Out

Damascus recounts a day in the life of young lovers Spencer and Hazel, 1 November 1993. It's the day they finally meet again after years communicating only by phone. It's also the day that they appear, at various points throughout the book, to be aged 10, 13, 18 or 21 or indeed, in the opening chapter, zero. It may spoil the novel to give away its ending

Jonathan Romney, Guardian

The climactic showdown is not only an apt marriage of the novel's form and content-but also gently comic, the characteristic tone of this undertaking. Ludic in a peculiarly British manner-An assured achievement

Times Literary Supplement

'Like Nick Hornby and Jonathan Coe, beard comically unhinges style, character and point of view to tell us that indeed we are in the chaos of the contemporary world'

New York Times
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