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In this remarkable debut novel, Charles Chadwick has created one of the most memorable, brilliantly realized characters in contemporary fiction - by turns poignant, funny, heartbreaking, and profound.
Meet Tom Ripple, a man with an uncommon outlook on his
common life. At home in a North London suburb, Ripple keeps close tabs on
his neighbors while his own family splinters apart. As the years pass by he
forges on, bravely and awkwardly, in his relationships with his wife and
children, his parents, girlfriends, colleagues, and friends, and in his
ongoing search for certainties, both moral and practical.
But what he
gains in wisdom over time, he loses in love, as his marriage disintegrates
and his children grow further away from him. The more he lives and the more
he learns, the less he understands.
Through the vividness of his voice and his growing sense of the sorrow
and absurdity of the world, Tom Ripple becomes an unusually appealing
anti-hero, aware of his ordinariness and the limits of his intelligence,
with a ribald sense of humor, and a clumsiness in his attempts at emotional
connection with others. He is a bewildered everyman navigating his way
through modern times.
In this remarkable debut novel, Charles Chadwick has created one
of the most memorable, brilliantly realized characters in contemporary
fiction. By turns poignant, funny, heartbreaking, and profound, It's All
Right Now is a towering achievement and a singular work of the
imagination.
If you expect intense action in your reading matter then it would be best if you moved swiftly past It's All Right Now. However, if you've enjoyed the subtle pleasures of books such as William Boyd's Any Human Heart or John Lanchester's Mr Phillips, then you should take a close look at this one...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
This first novel by 72-year-old retired civil servant Charles Chadwick caused quite a ripple pre-publication as much for the age of the author as for the book itself. It's All Right Now is Chadwick's fifth novel but his first to be published (he received nothing but rejection slips for the others). When Chadwick received the news that his novel had received advances worth several hundred thousand dollars he said "I am utterly astonished - The phrase 'beyond my wildest dreams' has now taken on ...
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If you liked It's All Right Now, try these:
by Ian McEwan
Published 2006
An astonishing novel that captures the fine balance of happiness and the unforeseen threats that can destroy it. A brilliant, thrilling page-turner that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.
by William Boyd
Published 2004
A moving, ambitious and richly conceived novel that summons up the heroics and follies of twentieth-century life.
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