Shuttlecock (Paperback)

by Graham Swift (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"An astonishing study of forms of guilt, laced with a thread of detection--and outrageous humor." -The Sunday Times (London)

"A world that is half Kafka, half Orwell--joined on a cord of elegant, tough, swift writing." -San Francisco Examiner




Product Description
This Kafka-esque masterpiece tells the story of Prentis, a man who catalogs "dead crimes" for the London Police Department and becomes involved with one case that possesses a menacing afterlife.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 3, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679739335
• ISBN-13: 978-0679739333
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #809,253 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A magnificent book. Grippin, enthralling & completely unique, September 27, 1999

By A Customer

Following Graham Swift's well-deserved successes with Waterland & Last Orders, I'm amazed this book remains virtually unknown. It is one of my all-time favourites, repaying multiple readings.

It works on several levels - as a straight thriller (is the narrator really paranoid? is Quinn insane? what's the truth about Prentice Snr, a mute inmate in a mental hospital), as a wonderfully vivid decriptive novel (Wimbledon, the London underground & Eastern France are all brought to life magnificently), a terrific gallery of characters, a study on family relations, guilt and expectations ... I could go on.

My advice: buy it, read it & pass it on to your friends.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The one I have been looking for., July 25, 2002

By	Edward Bach (Fullerton, California USA) - See all my reviews

For the past 40 years or so I have been looking for what I regard, the perfect book. This is it. I found it on my shelf, of all places. It had been sitting there for years ignored and overlooked for the more preferable reads, the bigger-better authors who garner the biggerst audience. Swift is magic. His main character, Prentis, is as I would draw him, ignomatic, real, diabolical. The book has a lurid, eeire feel to it, not creepy, but weird, the way I like it. Easy to follow but not shallow by any means. Anyone who becomes bored by reading Swift is a moron. There is a pile of substance between those simple lines, it just takes a littel intellect to find it.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The one I have been looking for., July 25, 2002

By	Edward Bach (Fullerton, California USA) - See all my reviews

For the past 40 years or so I have been looking for what I regard, the perfect book. This is it. I found it on my shelf, of all places. It had been sitting there for years ignored and overlooked for the more preferable reads, the bigger-better authors who garner the biggerst audience. Swift is magic. His main character, Prentis, is as I would draw him, ignomatic, real, diabolical. The book has a lurid, eeire feel to it, not creepy, but weird, the way I like it. Easy to follow but not shallow by any means. Anyone who becomes bored by reading Swift is a moron. There is a pile of substance between those simple lines, it just takes a littel intellect to find it.