Female Ruins [Hardcover]

Geoff Nicholson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2000

This is Geoff Nicholson's architecture novel. Female Ruins is a dazzling hybrid of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and Evelyn Waugh's The Decline and Fall. It's the story of Christopher Howell, a cult architect who allegedly built just one building, and the search for that fabled building--reputedly a wild, willful amalgam of styles ranging from 11th century Norman to 20th century Neutra. Ingeniously built into the narrative are bits of Howell's essays which celebrate the idea of the "Cardboard House" and the architecture of impermanence.

When Howell's daughter--and keeper of his flame--Kelly and a Howell groupie named Jack Dexter hook up in a free-falling love affair, the search for this apocryphal building becomes a search for a lost past. Brilliantly funny and seriously obsessive, Female Ruins shows how the castles we build are often symbols of our owns needs, follies, and magnificent obsessions.

"Geoff Nicholson's knowledge of the subject is sure, his understanding of the design and theories of the past 30 years assured and enjoyably related. None of this, however, should or does get in the way of his very human storytelling."--The Guardian

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This 12th novel by the popular British author is a meditative tale of a physical and psychological homecoming that builds its quiet and riveting plot through the dreams, achievements and theories of a dead architect with a mysterious legacy. The narrative opens on Kelly Howell, a not-quite-30 cabbie in a small town in rural Suffolk. Despite her impressive intellect and arch sensibility, Kelly is drifting, feeling doomed to mediocrity since she has failed to demonstrate talent commensurate with her late father's brilliance. Christopher Howell was a well-known architect who some regard as a genius, "the greatest modern English architect never to have built a building," while others view his career as a failure. (Howell's unorthodox essays appear periodically throughout the novel as skewed commentary on the plot.) When American tourist Jack Dexter arrives in the village, he asks Kelly to be his driver for a week, citing an injured knee. She accepts reluctantly, but as she shows him the local sights, an understated romance develops. Their relations reach a standoff when Dexter reveals that he is neither injured nor a mere tourist, but a researcher of Christopher Howell's work who wants to show Kelly her father's only project, a never-completed hodgepodge of a mansion in the middle of the California desert. Kelly's long-stifled confusion about her father rises to the surface in a believable and unsettling manner. Is she resilient enough to bear both the burden of a family member's fame and the vagaries of romantic love? Nicholson eschews the sarcastic bite of his earlier books (such as Whitbread-nominee Bleeding London), unraveling a complex, subtle story with equally intricate and modulated characters. This restraint, which artfully leads the reader to the poignant yet satisfying denouement, gives the novel special appeal.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The most compelling voice in this novel belongs to an offstage character, would-be architect and notable architectural critic Christopher Howell, whose death has occurred years before the novel opens. The principal characters are Howell's daughter Kelly, an English taxi driver, and Jack Dexter, a Howell groupie who has just arrived in England on holiday. In order to hire Kelly and get the goods on her father, Dexter uses a subterfuge, posing as an injured tourist seeking a driver to show him the local sights. Unsuspecting Kelly has long been haunted by her father's fame and his unfulfilled promise. Their wanderings take them, first, around Sussex to look at various architectural ruins and, later, after Dexter's cover is blown, to Los Angeles, where Dexter has a surprise waiting for Kelly. This entertaining read is enlivened by scattered riffs on architecture by Howell himself. It is likely to find a happy home on most public library shelves.
-Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Kingston, ON
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 236 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585670367
• ISBN-13: 978-1585670369
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,313,866 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Female Ruins a Fun Read, July 19, 2000

By 

Miriam M. Lain "Douglas Lain" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Female Ruins (Hardcover)

Geoff Nicholson's latest book is a fun read that doesn't amount to too much. And while the protaganist is likable and nicely drawn, there is little movement or development in her character.

In general Nicholson is a cultural critic, a sort of poor man's Roland Barthes. And his observations about architecture in "Female Ruins," are funny and astute. One gets the feeling, after reading a lot of Nicholson, that this is the reason he writes novels. He wants to talk about some subject that is obsessing him. Whether it be the electric guitar, VW bugs, foot fetishism, or the city of London, it's always some external subject that drives the story. Sometimes this is successful (Hunters and Gatherers, Bleeding London, Everything and More) and sometimes this drive to explain and expose the facts gets in the way (Flesh Guitar).

Here we have a story that carries the reader through, but doesn't ultimately satisfy. Female Ruins won't bore you, it's a nice ride, but when you close the book you'll be finished with it.

Female Ruins is a forgettable book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Architectural Madness, July 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Female Ruins (Hardcover)

I am so addicted to Mr. Nicholson! I own pretty much everything he's written, except for a few out of print pieces I'm still searching for. This new piece has his signature style of taking something common and twisting your perspective so that you see things in ways you never could in everyday life and you become just as intertwined with the subject as the characters are...

This book deals with the world of architecture (not the typical art history terminology and styles I memorized in college) and what it says about our human condition, especially about the coincidence and sometimes wimsy of it all.

I found myself completely thrust into the world of the characters and even though things seemed a bit predictable, the way things are revealed through Mr. Nicholson's twisted and descriptive language kept me completely inthralled and waiting to see what happens next.

If you liked his other books, this is a definite must-read. If you've never read anything before, try the Food Chain, Hunters & Gatherers or Bleeding London first and then go for this one.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars mythical erections, July 23, 2006

By 

D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Female Ruins (Mass Market Paperback)

Architects these days just build things, and they don't even get to be very famous. There used to be architect-gurus back in the twentieth century, who said things that got quoted a lot - people like Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. Kelly Howell is the daughter of one of these architect-philosophers, who was famous for not having built anything until he got crushed by one of his creations (a concrete hand).. She is conflicted about her feelings for her parents, makes a living driving a cab, and keeps trying to avoid giving interviews to biographers. A persistent American admirer of her father inveigles his way into her life.
It's mostly set in rural Norfolk, England. It is brilliantly satirical but also very cleverly plotted, especially in the last few chapters (set in California) that twist and turn and set the story on its head.