The House of Rumour: A NovelJake Arnott
Little A / New Harvest, March 2013
ISBN: 978-0544077799
Hailed as an heir to Don DeLillo’s Underworld by The Guardian, The House of Rumour is a tour de force that sweeps the reader through a century’s worth of secret histories.
The House Of Rumour sets itself up to be a rich, multi-faceted source of conspiracy from the Second World War to the present day. It enlists real life people--Ian Fleming, Aleister Crowley, Rudolf Hess, L Ron Hubbard--and places them in amongst a cast of fictional sci-fi writers, spies and actors. It is all placed into a framework of the 22 major arcana tarot cards.
Each chapter is a self-contained short story told from the perspective of each in a complex web of more or less loosely interconnected characters. Spanning 70 years and various countries, and assembled like a collage using the cards of a Tarot deck to give it structure, this is a complex novel which is both a semi-conventional story dealing with Rudolf Hess's WWII flight to England and its aftermath, but more importantly it's also a rumination on reality, consciousness, chance and every person's quest for fulfillment. The device works very well, and with regard to plot and structure the book is a very solid achievement.
The House of Rumour is a literary tour-de-force, a spectacular achievement in storytelling and prose from one of Great Britain's most acclaimed contemporary writers. Jake Arnott has rendered for his readers, a vast literary canvass filled with many fascinating, often compelling characters--both fictional and real--taking readers on a memorable, irresistible page-turner of a journey. Highly recommended!
JAKE ARNOTT is the author of The Long Firm, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year that was acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic. It was followed by He Kills Coppers, Truecrime, Johnny Come Home, and The Devil's Paintbrush. Both The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers have been made into widely praised TV dramas in the UK. Arnott lives in London.
ISBN: 978-0544077799; ISBN10: 0544077792; Imprint: Little A / New Harvest; On Sale: 3/19/2013; Format: Hardcover; Pages: 448; $26.00
