'Isn’t the life of any person made up out of the telling of two tales, after all? People live in the space between the realities of their lives and the hopes they have for them. The whole world makes more sense if you remember that everyone has two lives, their real lives and their dreams, both stories only a tape’s breadth apart from each other, impossibly divided, indivisibly close.'
Every year, Robert's family come together at a rambling old house to celebrate his birthday. Aunts, uncles, distant cousins - it has been a milestone in their lives for decades. But this year Robert doesn't want to be reminded of what has happened since they last met - and neither, for quite different reasons, does his granddaughter Kate. Neither of them is sure they can face the party. But for both Robert and Kate, it may become the most important gathering of all.
As lyrical and true to life as Norris's critically acclaimed debut Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain, which won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards, this is a compelling, emotional story of family, human frailty, and the marks that love leaves on us.
- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday (11 Jan. 2018)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0857523740
- ISBN-13: 978-0857523747
I'm thrilled to host the Blog Tour for Turning For Home by Barney Norris on Random Things today. Turning For Home was published by Doubleday / Transworld in hardback on 11 January 2018 and is the author's second novel.
I published my review of Turning For Home here on Random Things earlier in the month. I loved this book, I am positive that it's going to be in my top books of 2018, and yes, it's only January!
You can read the full review by clicking on the link above, but here is a snippet:
"Barney Norris weaves a special kind of magic with his words. Not one single phrase or sentence is superfluous, each one is expertly placed.
Turning For Home explores how families lose their connections, and the long and often difficult process of bring them back together. This author is incredibly talented and his story is an extraordinary portrait of a family, it is complex, yet compelling and is breathtakingly accomplished."
I was honoured to be invited to the official launch of Turning For Home, held last week at The Bridge Theatre on the South Bank in London. It was such a pleasure to meet the author for the first time and to be part of the celebrations. Turning For Home has had some amazing reviews during this Blog Tour. Barney Norris is incredibly talented and deserves every part of his success.
A graduate of the universities of Oxford and Royal Holloway, his plays are AT FIRST SIGHT (presented on tour and at Latitude Festival, 2011) and MISSING (Tristan Bates Theatre 2012), and his poetry, stories and other writings have been published in various little magazines.
He is the co-artistic director of the theatre company Up In Arms (www.upinarms.org.uk), works as Max Stafford-Clark's assistant at Out of Joint, and has previously worked and trained under Bernard O'Donoghue, Andrew Motion, Jo Shapcott, Thelma Holt, Peter Gill and David Hare, and at Salisbury Playhouse, Oxford Playhouse, the Royal Court and the Bush.
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