Wrongly accused of stealing from Lord Sandwich's larder, Ned finds himself cast out onto the streets of London and transforms himself into Dog Cull, a renowned criminal intent on bringing to justice the man who wronged him. 25,000 first printing.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Although, amazingly, he has not enjoyed a bestseller since The Warlord (1984), Bosse remains one of the most intriguingly versatile and skillful storytellers around. After the sweeping futuristic vision of Mister Touch , he has retreated to 18th-century London for his latest novel. Apart from an unimaginative title, the book is a triumph of inventive, ultra-vivid reconstruction. The sights and sounds of a city that spawned both filth and fashion, both the basest criminality and the loftiest moral purpose, have surely never been more dashingly evoked, and by way of a pell-mell narrative Bosse has convincingly woven fiction out of some very actual lives. Central to that narrative are two such historical figures: the Earl of Sandwich--cynical, snobbish, petty and sexually obsessed with impoverished young women; and Henry Fielding, the author of Tom Jones and many other splendid novels, shown here in his role as a stern but large-hearted magistrate who helped create the London police force from his Bow Street Runners. The plot is driven by Sandwich's membership in a group of fatuous noblemen who combine blasphemy and whoring at a made-over abbey (based on the very real Hellfire Club), and his procuring of female victims through a dastardly assistant. The leading actors in it include Bet Canning, a ruined but devious maiden; Ned, an upstanding country lad (not unlike Tom Jones) who turns to a life of crime; Ned's Sandwich's, or Ned's? change 'his' to 'Ned's' if latter/note change. db lovely mistress, Clare; and, of course, Fielding. Bosse renders the Fielding character through a first-person pastiche of the great novelist's own style which is at once brilliantly comic and sentimentally touching. Few contemporary writers 'authors writing' is redundant can produce the narrative drive of Bosse's best workbooks, not author himself, have narrative drive , and the twists and turns of his story here--always in perfect period character, yet delivered in swift, smooth modern prose--are likely to keep contemporary readers as enthralled by this book as Fielding's readers were by his novels 250 years ago. It is difficult to see how this book could fail to reach a large audience; even people who do not normally take to historical fiction will relish it. (Sept.) .
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
In a departure from the Asian and apocalyptic milieus of The Warlord (1983) and Mister Touch (1991), Bosse here re-creates Henry Fielding's London--and the gout-ridden father of the novel himself- -in a slightly convoluted but touching romantic saga. Young shepherd Ned Carleton arrives in the city to seek his fortune, finding a position with the imperious Lord Sandwich that he promptly loses when falsely accused of theft. Adding injury to insult, Ned burns a hand badly in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue a woman from a fire, and is thereby rendered unfit for any work save the illegal kind, which 18th-century London offers in abundance. He finds his niche in the fashionable West End as the fearsome Dog Cull, a sobriquet derived from his companion, a talented sheepdog turned herder of men ripe for the plucking. He also finds sweet love, however, with a prostitute who returns his affections as innocently as he offers them, and so he decides to blackmail the mighty Sandwich in order to gain the wherewithal for a fresh start for himself and Clare. Having deduced that his lordship is linked to a young woman who claimed she was abducted by a gypsy, Ned also connects the two to a former monastery that serves as the bawdy house for a group of blasphemous noblemen, who celebrate satanic rites using the living altar of a naked woman. Before he can profit from his knowledge, however, Ned is captured and sentenced to hang for murder--and only the timely arrival of Fielding, who has taken an interest in the case and who soon becomes smitten by Clare, can save him.... A masterful blend of history and fiction, marred only by the portrayal of Fielding, who appears aloof in his own narration of events. Even so, a vivid, engaging yarn. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
great but forgotten,
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This review is from: The Vast Memory of Love (Hardcover)
This book has disappeared and it is one of the great historical fictions with terrific characters, great plot and tremendous depth. I found this book at the library and I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a book that has it all. It will draw you in and move you. A great writer.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Atmospheric drama of 18th century London,
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This review is from: The Vast Memory of Love (Hardcover)
A sweeping epic of 18th-century London, Bosse's "The Vast Memory of Love" travels from the decadent corruption of the titled to the crime and misery of the slums.
On first coming to London, country boy Ned Carleton is hired as footman to Lord Sandwich, a stroke of financial luck he doesn't fully appreciate until he's lost it. Cast out for insolence when he refuses to admit to a theft he didn't commit, Ned soon loses the use of his hand in an act of failed heroism. Unable to land the most menial job or even to be impressed as a sailor because of his infirmity, Ned rejects the principles of his upbringing and turns to a life of petty crime rather than starve. Getting to this point, Bosse immerses the reader in a foul stew of the senses -- the stench of disease, vomit and unwashed bodies, the taste of poisonous gin, the itch of lice, the calculation in every passersby's opportunistic glance, the degradation and desperation of poverty. Meanwhile Lord Sandwich continues his dual passion for blashemous pageantry and fornication. His confederate and pimp, an ex-chimney sweep, makes a small but crucial error in judgment over a briefly rebellious girl which leads to involvement with the magistrate and author Henry Fielding. Fielding, beset with gout and the arsenic he takes to cure it, is also looking for Ned, now the famous Dog Cull who robs gentlemen with the aid of a sheep dog. And Ned nurses a deep hatred for Lord Sandwich. Bosse skillfully weaves the narratives of aristocaratic, middle class and underclass life, bringing them together with logic and a minimum of coincidence. Ned's story, the central narrative, is riveting, Lord Sandwich's is decadent and Fielding's is lackluster. Fielding's journal, preoccupied with pain, guilt, money troubles and principle, comes as an interruption to the bump and flow of a story teeming with life. But these sections only emphasize the narrative drive of the whole -- a story rich in historic detail and and drama but ever mindful that dignity is a luxury reserved for people of means.
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