Losing Nelson

Description

Losing Nelson confirms the Booker prize-winning Unsworth as one of the most elegant novelists writing today. As the child of an absent mother and a disapproving father, Charles Cleasby found comfort in solitary games of chess. Many years later, in the house where he grew up and now lives alone, he re-enacts the naval battles of his hero Horatio Nelson, moving model ships as carefully as he once did chess pieces. Having long been convinced of a link between 'this great man's life and mine', Charles, surrounded by his collection of Nelson memorabilia, begins work on his biography of the Admiral and is unsettled to find that Nelson may not be the perfect leader he's always imagined. To doubt his hero's integrity feels like a terrible betrayal, but if Nelson is not the man Charles thought he was, what does that mean for him?

Barry Unsworth was born in 1930 in Durham. He was the author of many novels, including Pascali's Island, which was shortlisted for the 1980 Booker Prize; Stone Virgin (1985); Sacred Hunger, which was joint winner of the 1992 Booker Prize; Morality Play, which was shortlisted for the 1995 Booker Prize; Losing Nelson (1999); The Songs of the King (2002); The Ruby in Her Navel (2006); Land of Marvels (2009); and The Quality of Mercy (2011), which was shortlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. Barry Unsworth died in 2012.

"It is accomplished, effective, exciting, and intelligent ... information is cunningly deployed, the pace is controlled: the mood of zealous desperation is heightened from page to page" -- Hilary Mantel Sunday Times "Wonderful" -- Barbara Trapido Independent on Sunday "Ingenious ... richly informative and sardonically entertaining" -- Books of the year Sunday Times "This truly excellent novel delves deep into the tragic side of hero-worship and heroism, and is a work of pathos and power" Guardian "Masterly" Evening Standard