Towards the End of the Morning [Hardcover]

Michael Frayn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1967

Frayn's 1967 novel about Fleet Street portrays a newspaper world long since gone. Stuck in a sleepy newspaper department, covering nature notes and crosswords, Dyson dreams of liberation and recognition. When a chance occurs to appear on TV, he eagerly prepares to greet the celebrity life.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 255 pages
• Publisher: The Harvill Press (June 1967)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0002218224
• ISBN-13: 978-0002218221
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,210,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Frayn was born in London in 1933 and began his career as a journalist on the Guardian and the Observer. His novels include Towards the End of the Morning, The Trick of It and Landing on the Sun. Headlong (1999) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, while his most recent novel, Spies (2002), won the Whitbread Novel Award. His fifteen plays range from Noises Off to Copenhagen and most recently Afterlife.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still funny after 36 years, January 31, 2003

By 

Steven Reynolds (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Towards the End of the Morning (Paperback)

Michael Frayn's 1967 Fleet Street novel draws unavoidable comparison with Evelyn Waugh's "Scoop", and that it comes off looking pretty good speaks volumes for Frayn's talent. It tells the story of John Dyson, a middling newspaper man slipping towards the end of his youth and towards the end of his foundering career. It also parallels the end of British print media in its traditional form as it gradually gave way to Americanization, i.e. the unavoidable slip towards television. But Frayn's portrait is a fair one: he isn't suggesting the lager-soaked world of British print was any better than what replaced it. He exploits the humorous potential of both. His dramatization of British class-based social anxiety and the irritating bullishness of American upstarts are both spot-on. Frayn's introduction to this edition interestingly explains the origins of the novel and the actual people and experiences on which it is based.