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Published Aug 2009
304 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Acclaimed author Valerie Martin returns with a dark comedy about love, sex, an actor's ambition, and the perils of playing a role too well.
In this fictional memoir, Valerie Martin brilliantly re-creates the seamy theater world of 1970s New York, when rents were cheap, love was free, and nudity on stage was the latest craze. Edward Day, a talented and ambitious young actor finds his life forever altered during a weekend party on the Jersey Shore, where he seduces the delicious Madeleine Delavergne and is saved from drowning by the mysterious Guy Margate, a man who bears an eerie physical resemblance to Edward. Forever after, Edward is torn between his desire for Madeleine and his indebtedness to Guy, his rival in love and in art, on stage and off.
"Another winner for Martin, who never disappoints." - Publishers Weekly
"Actors are among the most fascinating and fiery people alive. The Confessions of Edward Day reveals the world of theater actors in New York in the 1970s—mysterious and charming young people in a great era. Valerie Martin never repeats herself. After a memorable novel about Victorian London (Mary Reilly) and the best book there is about slavery (Property), she has now recreated in stunning detail a recent decade that feels as glamorous and remote as the 1890s or the 1920s." - Edmund White
"Edward Day's confession reminded me of how exciting New York theater really was in the 70s. Valerie Martin has truly captured the reality of being an actor and Edward's tale is as suspenseful as a thriller." - Blythe Danner
"Valerie Martin has given us an entertaining and insightful look at the angst, joy and heartbreak that is the work of the actor. Bravo." - Ben Gazzara
"In writing a novel about theater, Martin has also written a novel about life and the issues raised by Edward and Guy’s dilemma—what do we owe one another, when is it necessary to put another person’s needs before our own, can a debt ever be repaid?—are universal." - Bookpage
Visit the author at valeriemartinonline.com and browse an excerpt here.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Valerie Martin is the author of eleven novels, including Trespass, Mary Reilly, Italian Fever, and Property, four collections of short fiction, and a biography of St. Francis of Assisi. She has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as the Kafka Prize (for Mary Reilly) and Britain's Orange Prize (for Property).
Valerie Martin's most recent novel The Ghost of the Mary Celeste was published by Nan A. Talese/Random House in 2014, and is now available in paper from Vintage. Sea Lovers, a volume of new and selected short fiction, also from Nan A. Talese, was published in August of 2015.
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