Josh Lawton [Hardcover]

Melvyn Bragg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1988

Both a contemporary love story and a portrayal of innocence brutally curtailed, this novel charts the rites of passage of a young Cumbrian who falls in love, marries, fathers a child and is then betrayed. The author also wrote "Maid of Buttermere", "A Time to Dance" and "Autumn Manoeuvres".

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set among the bare crags of England's Cumbria, an area peopled by farmers without ambition or prospect, this tragic novel foretells doom from the beginning. Innocent Josh Lawton meets Maureen Telfordan exotic young woman from a tougher, livelier townat a dance, and falls instantly in love, ignoring the gossip about her and her family's violence and depravity. When Maureen becomes pregnant they marry and rent a cottage, where Josh tends their daughter, and is content. But Maureen grows increasingly restless, eventually succumbing to her passion for an old beau, an act that precipitates tragedy. The novel's strength lies in the protagonists' Hardyesque struggle to triumph over ordained disaster. Elegantly written by an author ( The Maid of Buttermere) steeped in his landscape and the mores of his characters, this subtly powerful novel should add to Bragg's rising reputation here.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

'With this novel, Melvyn Bragg has established his place in English letters to the extent that his Cumbria is as potent a literary region as Hardy's Wessex, Lawrence's Midlands and Housman's Shropshire' -- New Statesman 'The story unfolds with admirable simplicity ... beautifully told and even the most brutal and inarticulate characters somehow manage to engage our sympathies' -- Auberon Waugh, Spectator 'A pleasure to be remembered' -- Financial Times 'An effortless writer. He never strains for effect, simply achieves it. The pleasure to be had from this book is that of feeling, without having been exposed to any lies or romantic evasions, that the world is perhaps a better place than one had thought' -- Sunday Times --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (November 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340423293
• ISBN-13: 978-0340423295
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,212,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Super writing!, July 3, 2008

By 

Faith V. Wheatley "Faith Wheatley , mother, g... (English transplant in Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Josh Lawton (Hardcover)

I've only read a small part of this huge book, but it's written in great writing style, and one of those books you KNOW you're going to love as a classic!