Pilgrims

Description

'An enthralling and wonderfully vivid novel from a master storyteller' - Joseph O'Connor 'Kneale's medieval world is animated with a refreshing lightness of touch' - Sunday Telegraph 1289. A ragtag band of pilgrims sets off on the dangerous journey from England to Rome, where they hope their prayers will be answered. Each traveller has a very different reason for going. A poor villager is convinced his beloved cat is suffering in the fires of purgatory; a farmer fears he'll go to hell for cheating his neighbours; his social climber wife wants to show off her pilgrim badges at church; a mother believes her son's illness is punishment for her own adultery; a landlord is in trouble with the church because he punched an abbot on the nose, and a noblewoman wants to divorce her brutal husband and marry her new beau. While some are motivated by piety and others by greed, they all seek the same thing: salvation - from hell, or from each other. A novel filled with vividly drawn characters, Pilgrims is a delightful, comic portrait of medieval society, which reveals the fallibility of humans, the absurdities and consolations of belief, and the violence at the heart of religious fervour.

Matthew Kneale is the author of seven novels and two works of non-fiction. His debut novel, Whore Banquets, won the Somerset Maugham Award, Sweet Thames won John Llewellyn Rhys, and English Passengers, shortlisted for the Man Booker and Miles Franklin, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 2000. His latest non-fiction book, Rome: A History in Seven Sackings, was a Waterstones Book of the Month. For the last fifteen years he has lived in Rome with his wife and two children.

An enthralling and wonderfully vivid novel from a master storyteller. * Joseph O'Connor * Matthew Kneale's new novel could hardly be a more welcome getaway... Humane outrage pulses through this novel along with comic ebullience. * Sunday Times * There's a sly, humane comedy in the way Kneale ventriloquises both the stranglehold of religious law on daily life and thought and the endlessly inventive individual efforts to exploit and interpret it. * Guardian, Justine Jordan * Diverting [...] an enjoyable exploration of ancient English beliefs and loyalties that still have disquieting echoes today. * Evening Standard, Nick Curtis * Kneale's medieval world is animated with a refreshing lightness of touch. * Sunday Telegraph * Kneale illuminates and entertains with a quietly skilful touch. * The Arts Desk, Boyd Tonkin * Kneale's novel takes readers back to an age of religious superstition with such assurance that every word rings true. * Mail on Sunday * Not many novelists can evoke a period as far back as 700 years but we're there for every step of this absorbing journey. * The New European * Rich and absorbing * The Times * A source of constant delight ... A wonderful novel * Tom Holland, Front Row, BBC Radio 4 * A warm-hearted tale, full of intriguing historical detail, plot twists and comedic light touches. * Robbie Millen, The Times * Uproariously funny scenes... For all of the hilarity of the pilgrims' capers, Kneale does a good job of showing us the darker side of British history - and reminding us that in silence lies complicity. * Financial Times * [Kneale] captures an ingrained sense of English, Christian superiority over those who are not considered to truly belong that feels all too uneasily familiar. * Observer * This is a kindly book, too: humane, generous, enjoyable * TLS * [An] entertaining historical novel filled with all sorts of high jinks and nun-related mischief. * Daily Telegraph *