The Drowning People
'Redolent of early Evelyn Waugh... Mason already displays narrative drive, verbal skill and technical mastery.' Daily Express
When Richard Mason wrote his impressive début novel, he was a precociously gifted eighteen-year-old, whose stellar advances and good looks ensured a media brouhaha that would intimidate the most seasoned authors. Now re-issued in a 10th anniversary edition, The Drowning People was as memorable for it's first line as the hype that surrounded it's acquisition. 'My wife of more than forty-five years shot herself yesterday afternoon'. The novel goes on to tell the story of twenty-one-year-old James Farrell, a gifted violinist with the world at his feet. But when he falls in love with the beautiful and fragile Ella Harcourt he is drawn into a tangle of lies and cruelty. And James can only watch helplessly as the most beautiful thing in his life is strangled by deception, betrayal and ultimately murder.
Read an extract from The Drowning People
Find out more about Richard Mason
02/03/2011
