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A rollicking novel with a dark undertow, set around three unforgettable individuals and a doomed movie set—from the award-winning, best-selling author of Any Human Heart A producer. A novelist. An actress. It's summer 1968—a time of war and assassinations, protests and riots. While the world is reeling, our trio is involved in making a disaster-plagued, Swingin' Sixties British movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives. As the movie shoot zigs and zags, these layers of secrets become increasingly more untenable. Pressures build inexorably. The FBI and CIA get involved. Someone is going to crack—or maybe they all will. From one of Britain's best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel—by turns hilarious and heartbreaking—that asks the vital questions: What makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn't?
A rollicking novel with a dark undertow, set around three unforgettable individuals and a doomed movie set—from the award-winning, best-selling author of Any Human Heart A producer. A novelist. An actress. It's summer 1968—a time of war and assassinations, protests and riots. While the world is reeling, our trio is involved in making a disaster-plagued, Swingin' Sixties British movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives. As the movie shoot zigs and zags, these layers of secrets become increasingly more untenable. Pressures build inexorably. The FBI and CIA get involved. Someone is going to crack—or maybe they all will. From one of Britain's best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel—by turns hilarious and heartbreaking—that asks the vital questions: What makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn't?
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the cover
1
Elfrida Wing stirred, grunted and shifted sleepily in her bed as the summer’s angled morning sun brightened the room, printing a skewed rectangle of lemony-gold light onto the olive-green-flecked wallpaper close by her pillow. Elfrida, wakened by the glare inching towards her, opened her eyes and considered the wallpaper, bringing it into focus with some difficulty, trying to force her comatose brain to work, to think. As usual, on waking she felt absolutely terrible. In front of her eyes, small sharp leaves seemed to be depicted there, in a stylised manner, she decided—or were they birds? Bird shapes? Or perhaps they were simply daubs and splatters of olive green that brought leaves and birds to mind.
No matter. Leaves, birds or random flecks—who really cared in the great scheme of things? She eased herself out of bed and slowly pulled on her dressing gown over her pyjamas. She slipped down the stairs as quietly as possible, wincing at each creak, hand securely gripping the banister, trying to ignore the awful hill-cracking headache that, now she was upright, had begun thumping behind her eyes, making them bulge rhythmically in sympathy, or so she felt. Then she remembered Reggie was long gone, up at first light, off to his film. She could relax.
She paused, coughed, then farted noisily and finished her descent of the staircase with careless din, striding into the kitchen and flinging open the fridge door looking for her orange juice. She scissored off the top of a carton and poured herself half a tumblerful before turning to the condiment cupboard and removing the bottle of Sarson’s White Vinegar that she kept there behind the pack of sugar. She added a sizeable slug to her orange juice. Sometimes she wished vodka had more flavour, like gin, but she recognised at the same time that its very neutrality was her greatest ally. Vodka and tap water in a tumbler was her daily tipple when Reggie was around. He never questioned her near-constant thirst, luckily, and never wondered why there was always a considerable stock of Sarson’s White Vinegar in the cupboard. Elfrida sat down at the kitchen table and sipped at her vodka and orange juice, finishing it quickly, and then poured herself another, feeling the buzz, the reassuring hit. Her headache was disappearing already.
The title of a novel came mysteriously, unbidden, into her head—The Zigzag Man. She could almost see the cover in her mind’s eye. A clever use of the two zeds; perhaps different colours for the “zig” and the “zag” . . . She poured herself more orange juice and went back to the cupboard for the Sarson’s, emptying the last half-inch into the glass. Better buy another bottle of voddy, she told herself. Or two. She found her notebook and wrote the title down. The Zigzag Man by Elfrida Wing. She had noted dozens of titles for potential novels, she saw, flicking back through the pages. There they were: The Summer of the Wasps, Freezy, The Acrobat, Drop Dead Gorgeous, A Week in Madrid, The Golden Rule, Dark Eulogy, Jazz, Spring Equinox, The Lightning Process, Cool Sun, Mystery in a Small Town, Estranged, Artists’ Entrance, Berlin to Hamburg, The Windrow, The Riviera Gap, A Safe Onward Journey, Falling Away—title after title of unwritten novels. And now The Zigzag Man could be added to their number. Titles were the easy bit—writing the novel was the awful challenge. She...
Reviews-
November 23, 2020 The lives of a film producer, an actor, and a novelist converge during an ill-fated movie shoot in Boyd’s madcap 16th novel (after Love Is Blind). It is 1968 and the very British Talbot Kydd is in Brighton overseeing the production. His leading lady is American ingenue Anny Viklund, and the movie is directed by the pretentious, unfaithful husband of famous writer Elfrida Wing. Talbot, secretly gay, constantly puts out fires on and off the movie set. Anny has been extorted by her terrorist ex-husband who has recently escaped from prison. And Elfrida is a raging alcoholic who can’t get past the first, terrible, paragraph of her new book. As Boyd expertly unfolds his characters’ stories, philosophical questions emerge: where does each of these individuals belong in history, and must they play the part expected of them? Filled with outlandish and amusing characters, including predatory talent agents and a pornography-peddling has-been actor, Boyd’s novel offers its heroes paths to escape their burdens, some of which are a bit implausible, but all are fun to watch. Boyd is an exquisite stylist, and his tragicomic novel is a sublime escape.
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