A satirical novel with real emotional depth, from a debut author who will appeal to readers of Peter Carey and Tom Robbins 'I can't remember reading a novel in such a compulsive, leave-me-in-peace way since Tales from the City. Patrick Ness weaves Armistead Maupin's mini-chapters, sharp dialogue and outrageous plot-weaving with hallucinatory, apocalyptic material worthy of Russell Hoban or Philip Pullman but the unpredictable result is entirely original. More please!' patrick gale With the legendary Cora Larsson finally stepping down as Mayor to make way for her protegee, Max Latham, the seaside city of Hennington finds itself in a state of flux. In the midst of the worst heatwave in living memory, even the crash of rhinos that wanders the city's streets and parks is becoming restless, and has caused several rush-hour traffic jams this week. Across town, bow-legged and malevolent Country Club owner Thomas Banyon's temperature is also rising, as he stews over the small size of his particular universe -- and at the tight leash held on him by his powerful father Archie, scion of Banyon Enterprises and friend to Cora Larsson. In fact, come to think of it, Thomas just might be the perfect candidate to run for Mayor against Cora's golden boy, Max...Told with great style, wit and feeling, The Crash of Hennington is a magnificent satirical novel with real emotional depth. Reminiscent of the work of Peter Carey and Tom Robbins, it combines a refreshing, unshowy intelligence with a wonderfully rich cast of characters, in a setting that is both surreally different and undeniably familiar. Welcome to Hennington.
The Crash of Hennington
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
'Patrick Ness recreates the world as we know it, infusing it with a charm and whimsy that brings to mind Calvino and, of course, the Ionesco of "Rhinoceros". This is a true changeling of a book, both funny and subversive.' T.C. Boyle
About the Author
patrick ness was brought up in Seattle, on the west coast of America, but now lives in London. The Crash of Hennington is his first novel.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
As a child
I was born on an army base called Fort Belvoir, near Alexandria, Virginia, in the United States. My father was a drill sergeant in the US Army, but much nicer than that makes him seem. I only stayed at Fort Belvoir for the first four months of my life and have never even been back to the East Coast of America. We moved to Hawaii, where I lived until I was almost six. I went to kindergarten there, and we used to have field trips down to Waikiki Beach. I once picked up a living sea urchin and got about a hundred needle pricks in the palm of my hand. I made up stories all the time as a kid, though I was usually too embarrassed to show them to anybody.
As an adult
I've only ever really wanted to be a writer. I studied English Literature at the University of Southern California, and when I graduated, I got a job as a corporate writer at a cable company in Los Angeles, writing manuals and speeches and once even an advertisement for the Gilroy, California Garlic Festival. I got my first story published in Genre magazine in 1997 and was working on my first novel, The Crash of Hennington, when I moved to London in 1999. I've lived here ever since. I taught Creative Writing at Oxford University for three years, usually to students older than I was.
As an artist
So far, I've published two books for adults, a novel called The Crash of Hennington and a short story collection called Topics About Which I Know Nothing, a title which seemed funny at the time but less so 10,000 mentions later... Here's a helpful hint if you want to be a writer: When I'm working on a first draft, all I write is 1000 words a day, which isn't that much (I started out with 300, then moved up to 500, now I can do 1000 easy). And if I write my 1000 words, I'm done for the day, even if it only took an hour (it usually takes more, of course, but not always). Novels are anywhere from 60,000 words on up, so it's possible that just sixty days later you might have a whole first draft. The Knife of Never Letting Go is 112,900 words and took about seven months to get a good first draft. Lots of rewrites followed. That's the fun part, where the book really starts to come together just exactly how you see it, the part where you feel like a real writer.
Things you didn't know about Patrick Ness
1. I have a tattoo of a rhinoceros.
2. I have run two marathons.
3. I am a certified scuba diver.
4. I wrote a radio comedy about vampires.
5. I have never been to New York City but...
6. I have been to Sydney, Auckland and Tokyo.
7. I was accepted into film school but turned it down to study writing.
8. I was a goth as a teenager (well, as much of a goth as you could be in Tacoma, Washington and still have to go to church every Sunday).
9. I am no longer a goth.
10. Under no circumstances will I eat onions.
*******
Patrick Ness is the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy. The Knife of Never Letting Go, Book One of the trilogy, won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Booktrust Teenage Prize. The Ask and The Answer, the second book in the trilogy won the Costa Children's Book Award 2009. The third book, Monsters of Men, is released in September 2010.
He has also written a novel (The Crash of Hennington) and a short story collection (Topics About Which I Know Nothing) for adults, has taught Creative Writing at Oxford University, and is a literary critic for the Guardian. Born in Virginia, he lives in London.
I was born on an army base called Fort Belvoir, near Alexandria, Virginia, in the United States. My father was a drill sergeant in the US Army, but much nicer than that makes him seem. I only stayed at Fort Belvoir for the first four months of my life and have never even been back to the East Coast of America. We moved to Hawaii, where I lived until I was almost six. I went to kindergarten there, and we used to have field trips down to Waikiki Beach. I once picked up a living sea urchin and got about a hundred needle pricks in the palm of my hand. I made up stories all the time as a kid, though I was usually too embarrassed to show them to anybody.
As an adult
I've only ever really wanted to be a writer. I studied English Literature at the University of Southern California, and when I graduated, I got a job as a corporate writer at a cable company in Los Angeles, writing manuals and speeches and once even an advertisement for the Gilroy, California Garlic Festival. I got my first story published in Genre magazine in 1997 and was working on my first novel, The Crash of Hennington, when I moved to London in 1999. I've lived here ever since. I taught Creative Writing at Oxford University for three years, usually to students older than I was.
As an artist
So far, I've published two books for adults, a novel called The Crash of Hennington and a short story collection called Topics About Which I Know Nothing, a title which seemed funny at the time but less so 10,000 mentions later... Here's a helpful hint if you want to be a writer: When I'm working on a first draft, all I write is 1000 words a day, which isn't that much (I started out with 300, then moved up to 500, now I can do 1000 easy). And if I write my 1000 words, I'm done for the day, even if it only took an hour (it usually takes more, of course, but not always). Novels are anywhere from 60,000 words on up, so it's possible that just sixty days later you might have a whole first draft. The Knife of Never Letting Go is 112,900 words and took about seven months to get a good first draft. Lots of rewrites followed. That's the fun part, where the book really starts to come together just exactly how you see it, the part where you feel like a real writer.
Things you didn't know about Patrick Ness
1. I have a tattoo of a rhinoceros.
2. I have run two marathons.
3. I am a certified scuba diver.
4. I wrote a radio comedy about vampires.
5. I have never been to New York City but...
6. I have been to Sydney, Auckland and Tokyo.
7. I was accepted into film school but turned it down to study writing.
8. I was a goth as a teenager (well, as much of a goth as you could be in Tacoma, Washington and still have to go to church every Sunday).
9. I am no longer a goth.
10. Under no circumstances will I eat onions.
*******
Patrick Ness is the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy. The Knife of Never Letting Go, Book One of the trilogy, won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Booktrust Teenage Prize. The Ask and The Answer, the second book in the trilogy won the Costa Children's Book Award 2009. The third book, Monsters of Men, is released in September 2010.
He has also written a novel (The Crash of Hennington) and a short story collection (Topics About Which I Know Nothing) for adults, has taught Creative Writing at Oxford University, and is a literary critic for the Guardian. Born in Virginia, he lives in London.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A betwitching debut,
By The Peruvian Wunderkind (Mississauga, ON Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Crash of Hennington (Paperback)
Having never heard of either the title or the author, I nevertheless purchased the book as the absurd premise rather intrigued me: a fictional modern mega-city called Hennington that is normal in seemingly all respects but for its peaceful co-existence with a large herd of rhinos (technically called a crash). Reinforcing the fictionality of the environment, Ness introduces new words for established concepts e.g. "Forum" replaces heroin, "Rumour" replaces religion.The book deftly weaves in and out of a dizzying number of storylines involving Hennington's colourful characters: a millionaire octogenarian, a powerful golf course owner, a still-lactating 40-year old plus accountant/prostitute, a well-endowed gay waiter, an attractive out-of-towner with nefarious plans, etc. etc. Each chapter dedicates itself to one of these plots and rotates to the others accordingly. As many of the chapters are only 4-5 pages long, the reader is constantly juggling the various plots and puzzling together what went before and how the various story pieces fit together. The narrator function is liberally spread among characters, human and non-human alike, as well as an external narrator; oftentimes, the shift in textual orientation occurs in the same sentence. The multiple plots gradually coalesce into a sole narrative, and we see how the seemingly unrelated actions of one person nevertheless affect another (much like the vaunted `butterfly theory,' where the flapping of a butterfly's wings in one part of the world lead to tiny atmospheric changes that can eventually cause a tornado somewhere else). As the title suggests, the fate of the city is inexorably intertwined with the fate of the rhinos. The rhinos serve a sub-plot function, and like many of Shakespeare's plays, anticipate and suggest important developments in the main story lines. The rhinos are actually quite interesting; Ness obviously took the time to understand their social organization, individual traits, and feeding habits and makes their actions in a sprawling metropolis as believable as can be. The reader is usually privy to the mind(?) of the herd's leader; a compassionate middle-aged female whose over-arching concern is the welfare of the crash. Her frequent deliberations with notions of leadership, responsibility, self-sacrifice, and hope are very similar to the psychological entanglements the human characters must face. Howlingly funny in places, unspeakably tragic at others, but always entertaining, this was one book I had great difficulty putting down. The book is all the more impressive as this is Ness' debut novel. I will definitely be on the look out for any further Patrick Ness offerings and would highly recommend anyone else to do the same.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
