Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2010
384 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
On its way to the Galápagos Islands, a light aircraft crashes into the sea. Zoologist Daniel Kennedy is confronted with a stark Darwinian choice. Should he save himself, or Nancy, the woman he loves? But how can one moment of betrayal ever be forgiven? And after he escapes the plane and swims for help, who is the elusive figure who guides him away from certain death?
Back in London, Daniel thinks he finds the answer; it is connected with his great grandfather and the first horrific day of Passchendaele. But as the past collapses into the present, the fissures in his relationship with Nancy show through. Until he is given a second chance to prove his courage and earn her forgiveness. The Blasphemer is a novel that speaks to the head as well as the heart of the reader.
"Starred Review. Farndale can be didactic, but he knows how to tell a terrific story." - Publishers Weekly
"Farndale raises compelling philosophical and theological themes, though ultimately, in literature and in life, they remain intriguingly unresolved." - Kirkus
"Does suspense exceptionally well, and is a book that won’t leave your fingernails intact...a terrifically exciting and thought-provoking must-read." - Daily Mail (UK)
"A fine novel; strange and unforgettable." - The Times (UK)
"Beautiful...Farndale's elegant prose, his storytelling ability and the wise tolerance with which he views...his characters lend his exhilarating novel a tenderly redemptive afterimage." - Sunday Telegraph (UK)
"This perfectly constructed drama explores the moralities around unconditional love and self-preservation. And it also weaves an intricate story of redemption starting in the trenches at Passchendaele and continuing till Britain's current terror threat....storytelling at its best." - News of the World (UK)
"Ignites with an energy that should ensure short-listing in the next Man Booker Prize....Farndale’s evocation of trench warfare surpasses Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong...Of the book’s many accomplishments perhaps the strongest is the writing itself. Exquisite and luminous...Farndale gives a master class in the power of literature to illuminate the physical world and the human soul.”
—The Australian
"Love, cowardice and redemption are the themes that stalk Farndale’s beautifully intelligent tale." - Daily Mirror (UK)
This information about The Blasphemer 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.
Nigel Farndale is the author of Haw-Haw: The Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce, which was shortlisted for the 2005 Whitbread Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. The Blasphemer is his first novel.
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