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A Novel
by Richard Mason
From the acclaimed author of The Drowning People ("A literary sensation" - The New York Times Book Review) and Natural Elements ("A magnum opus" - The New Yorker), an opulent, romantic coming-of-age drama set at the height of Europe's belle époque, written in the grand tradition with a lightness of touch that is wholly modern and original.
The novel opens in Amsterdam at the turn of the last century. It moves to New York at the time of the 1907 financial crisis and proceeds onboard a luxury liner headed for Cape Town.
It is about a young man - Piet Barol - with an instinctive appreciation for pleasure and a gift for finding it. Piet's father is an austere administrator at Holland's oldest university. His mother, a singing teacher, has died - but not before giving him a thorough grounding in the arts of charm.
Piet applies for a job as tutor to the troubled son of Europe's leading hotelier: a child who refuses to leave his family's mansion on Amsterdam's grandest canal. As the young man enters this glittering world, he learns its secrets - and soon, quietly, steadily, finds his life transformed as he in turn transforms the lives of those around him.
History of a Pleasure Seeker is a brilliantly written portrait of the senses, a novel about pleasure and those who are in search of it; those who embrace it, luxuriate in it, need it; and those who deprive themselves of it as they do those they love. It is a book that will beguile and transport you - to another world, another time, another state of being.
"A provocative and keenly funny portrait of a rake with an agenda all his own." - Kirkus Reviews
"One of the best three books of the year." - Independent (UK)
"Starred Review. Highly recommended as an engaging portrait of an individual, a family, and time." - Library Journal
"This bildungsroman is as smart as it is seductive... Readers will savor final scenes..." - Booklist
"A ripping literary romp about the adventures of a dashing, athletic and sexually ambiguous young man." – The Evening Standard (UK)
"Enthralling and perfectly paced." – The Observer (UK)
"A saucy, hugely entertaining romp of a young man making his fortune in 1907 Amsterdam." – The Sunday Times (UK)
"Mason tells his story with humour, charm, fine attention to detail and a healthy dose of eroticism." – The Independent on Sunday (UK)
This information about History of a Pleasure Seeker 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.
Richard Mason was born in South Africa in 1978 and lives in New York City. His first novel, The Drowning People, published when he was twenty-one and still a student at Oxford, sold more than a million copies worldwide and won Italy's Grinzane Cavour Prize for Best First Novel. He is also the author of Natural Elements, which was chosen by The Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009 and longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Sunday Times Literary Award. History of a Pleasure Seeker is his fourth novel. In 1999, with Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mason started the Kay Mason Foundation, which helps disadvantaged South Africans receive quality education. Mason received the Inyathelo Merit Award for Philanthropy in 2010. Find out more at www.richard-mason.org.
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