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The Blasphemer
  • Published: 1 June 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407084169
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 496
Categories:

The Blasphemer

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD & A RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK

Formats & editions
Paperback
1 Mar 2011
EBook
1 June 2010
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Shortlisted for the 2010 Costa Novel Award, an astonishing, ambitious and masterful new novel, with echoes of Birdsong, that reads at the pace of a thriller.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD & A RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK

FOR FANS OF ATONEMENT, BIRDSONG, IN MEMORIAM AND ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

'A book that won't leave your fingernails intact...a terrifically exciting and thought-provoking must-read' DAILY MAIL

'A great achievement...To take on the First World War and make it fresh is remarkable.' MELVYN BRAGG

____


On its way to the Galapagos Islands, a light aircraft ditches into the sea. As the water floods through the cabin, zoologist Daniel Kennedy faces an impossible choice – should he save himself, or Nancy, the woman he loves?

In a parallel narrative, it is 1917 and Daniel’s great-grandfather Andrew is preparing to go over the top at Passchendaele. He, too, will have his courage tested, and must live with the moral consequences of his actions.

When Daniel returns to London, the past and the present collide, as Daniel tries to make sense of something he saw while swimming to safety that he cannot explain. Indeed nothing will make sense - either for Daniel or his great-grandfather - until they prove themselves capable of altruism, and deserving of forgiveness.

It is a question of courage. It is a question of love. It is a question of having the faith to endure...

_____

Readers say:

'Really gripping ... I recommend it very warmly to anyone who likes an involving, intelligent, thoughtful and thought-provoking read.'

'A beautifully constructed and written novel with some very fine touches and linked themes...quite remarkable for a first work'

'The author treats the reader with intelligence and offers an intricate tale with convincing, flawed characters making difficult choices and dealing with the consequences'

'Really superb...Usually I feel you have to choose a book that is ether a page turning immersive read OR has beautiful writing and thought provoking themes. It is rare to find a book that provides both. The Blasphemer is that book.'
  • Published: 1 June 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407084169
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 496
Categories:

About the author

Nigel Farndale

Nigel Farndale is the author of The Blasphemer, which was shortlisted for the 2010 Costa Novel Award. His previous books include Haw-Haw: The Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce, which was shortlisted for the 2005 Whitbread Biography Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He was born and raised in the Yorkshire Dales and now lives on the Hampshire-Sussex border with his wife and their three sons.
portrait photo of Nigel Farndale

Also by Nigel Farndale

The Dictator’s Muse
The Road Between Us
See all

Praise for The Blasphemer

A beguiling and resonant novel of ideas. The action is vivid and absorbing...although this intergenerational family drama is plotted like a thriller, it's also a novel of ideas, throwing light on the strange dance between religion and science.

Cameron Woodhead, Melbourne Age

A constantly engaging and witty novel from a tremendously clever writer.

Telegraph

A fine novel; strange and unforgettable.

Kate Saunders, The Times

A great achievement...To take on the First World War as so very many have done and make it fresh is remarkable.

Melvyn Bragg

As idiosyncratic as it is ambitious...given shape and purpose by a true literary craftsman. The book both keeps you reading and makes you think.

Sally Cousins, Sunday Telegraph

Beautiful...Farndale's elegant prose, his storytelling ability and the wise tolerance with which he views...his characters lend his exhilarating novel a tenderly redemptive afterimage.

Jane Shilling, Sunday Telegraph

Does suspense exceptionally well, and it's a book that won't leave your fingernails intact...a terrifically exciting and thought-provoking must-read

John Harding, Daily Mail

I drank in Nigel Farndale's The Blasphemer in huge lungfuls, and mourned it when it was finished. For anyone who loved Saturday, Atonement or Birdsong, this is the generational novel at its best.

Mail on Sunday

Ignites with an energy that should ensure short-listing in the next Man Booker Prize....Farndale's evocation of trench warfare surpasses Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong...Of the book's many accomplishments perhaps the strongest is the writing itself. Exquisite and luminous...Farndale gives a master class in the power of literature to illuminate the physical world and the human soul.

The Australian

It makes exhilarating reading, all the better for its satirical edge.

The Tablet

Love, cowardice and redemption are the themes that stalk Farndale's beautifully intelligent tale.

Daily Mirror

Love, terrorism, plane crashes, Passchendaele, religious visions... The highest compliment one can pay Farndale... is that the material is so well marshalled that the narrative unfurls without strain....beautifully done.

Mail on Sunday

Philosophically ambitious and deftly crafted, Nigel Farndale's novel has one leg planted in the trenches of the First World War and the other placed sure-footedly in the present...perspicacious observations of human behaviour... beautiful.

Country Life

Plausiby drawn....strong central characters, interesting subplots and well-sketched minor characters.

TLS

Profound, moving and compelling. A beautifully composed novel.

Emily Maitlis

This perfectly constructed drama explores the moralities around unconditional love and self-preservation. And it also weaves an intricate story of redemption starting in the trenches at Passchendaele and continuing till Britain's current terror threat...storytelling at its best.

News of the World