The People's Train

Description

After a long, dangerous escape from Tsarist Russia, Artem Samsurov might have reached sanctuary in Brisbane, Australia, but that doesn't stop him trying to create a socialist paradise with his fellow emigres and workmates. And despite getting entangled with an attractive female lawyer, then charged with the murder of an informer, he never loses hope that one day the revolution will come. But when he returns to Russia in 1917 to fight alongside his comrades, he cannot know whether it will succeed, or at what cost. In this enthralling novel, Thomas Keneally brings to life a seismic episode in world history from an unusual, intimate perspective. Basing his story on a real figure, he captures what it was like moment by dramatic moment for the men and women caught up in the maelstrom, and explores the passions, ideals and terrible compromises that fuelled it.

Thomas Keneally has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize four times and won it with SCHINDLER'S ARK in 1982. His novels have been filmed (SCHINDLER'S LIST and THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH) and dramatised (THE PLAYMAKER). He has also written several works of non-fiction.

Thomas Keneally's impersonation of translated prose, artfully achieved, is studded with strange poeticisms...a sturdy achievement, expertly constructed and paced...One of its major pleasures is to be found in the way in which the author has braided together the factual and the invented. * Jonathan Barnes, Literary Review * Uncommonly good * Allan Massie, Scotsman * Effortlessly captures the mindset of a young man convinced that the day is coming with the workers will rise...This impassioned idealism stands starkly at odds with our own knowledge of where the revolution lead - a contrast that lends the novel a queasy power. * Edward McGown, Daily Telegraph * Reading at times like a cross between Peter Carey and Tom Rob Smith's Child 44, Keneally has delivered a broad-ranging piece of historical fiction that approaches his best. Given that his best is the 1982 Booker-winning SCHINDLER'S ARK, that is high praise indeed. * Robert Epstein, Independent on Sunday * Thomas Keneally is one of the historical novel's most expert practitioners, and his new book sees him back on the form that produced SCHINDLER'S ARK * Giles Foden, Guardian *