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Published May 2021
320 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
The author of Mothers delivers an existential mystery that explores the uncertain intersection between fiction and reality, and the disastrous consequences of a chance encounter.
Two British men, both writers, meet by chance in Berlin. Robert is trying and failing to finish his next book while balancing his responsibilities as a husband and father. Patrick, a recent arrival in the city, is secretive about his past, but eventually reveals that he has been ghostwriting the autobiography of a Russian oligarch. The oligarch has turned up dead, and Patrick claims to be a hunted man himself.
Although Robert doubts the truth of Patrick's story, it fascinates him, and he thinks it might hold the key to his own foundering novel. Working to gain the other man's trust, Robert draws out the details of Patrick's past while ensnaring himself ever more tightly in what might be either a fantasist's creation or a lethal international plot.
Through an elegant existential game of cat and mouse, Chris Power's A Lonely Man depicts an attempt to create art at the cost of empathy. Robert must decide what is his for the taking―and whether some stories are too dangerous to tell.
"Power's understated style abets the tension, creating gaps and unanswered questions that pull the reader along...An entertaining literary thriller that traces intrigue from the writer's mind to the latest headlines." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[B]eguiling...For a novel filled with so much trickery, there are some slack sections...By and large, though, Power maintains an elegant sense of intrigue around the lengths writers will go for a good story." - Publishers Weekly
"An elegant, atmospheric story of shadows and half-truths...A Lonely Man soon reveals itself as a taut, subtle, postmodern literary thriller written with an exacting command over its form...The final 50 pages are so tense, I found myself both too stressed to go on and too stressed to stop, a total captive to the story." - Sunday Times (UK)
"[A] slyly ensnaring literary thriller written in immaculate prose...Power's restraint pays off, making for a subtly immersive read, his sentences rippling like clear water even as the story's murkier undertow pulls you out to sea...A Lonely Man is a gripping and deftly controlled novel that proves Power is as good at writing books as he is at writing about them." - Vanity Fair
"A Lonely Man left me unnerved and chilled. To read this book is to encounter a mysterious and shapeshifting stranger. Chris Power writes with masterful dexterity, and this novel reveals his genius for subtle misdirection and pulsing tension. A Lonely Man is a delicate snare of a novel, and by the time you realize that the characters are trapped in a lethal game, you are also trapped and powerless to resist its hold. I was breathless and nervous by the end of it. An alluring and seductive novel." - Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life
"A thrilling, unnerving novel following an international conspiracy and domestic solitude—A Lonely Man is one of those rare books that's as entertaining as it is perceptive, a page-turner with exacting syntax and emotional heft." - Catherine Lacey, author of Pew
"Is it possible to spin a thriller, a real thriller, out of the deep and bitter mysteries at the heart of the creative process? With A Lonely Man, Chris Power shows us that it can be done, and done beautifully. This is a thinking person's novel of suspense—and also one of the most vivid and unsparing accounts of the expatriate writer's life that I've encountered. Mr. Power writes with genuine daring." - John Wray, author of Godsend
This information about A Lonely Man was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Chris Power is the author of Mothers, which was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. He lives in London.
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