The Swansong of Wilbur McCrum

Bronia Kita

11/2010 · Pan Macmillan

Táto e‑kniha

Wilbur McCrum has always been a drifter. Abandoned by his parents, one after the other, and subsequently passed from pillar to post, he was still a young lad when he first took to the road, and somehow he's never settled anywhere since. When he meets Ida May, however, that looks set to change: finally, Wilbur's dream of making a home, a family, and a future for himself, looks set to become reality. But fate's a funny old thing, and Wilbur never has had much luck . . .

'With a hugely likeable narrator, and a narrative that gallops along at the breakneck pace of a runaway steer, I loved the energy of the writing, and the way the world of the Wild West is painted so clearly in swift, deft strokes. A terrific and unusual voice' Kate Long

'Kita's gold-rush setting incorporates all the dusty heroism of the Wild West. But Wilbur McCrum is the book's truly unforgettable element. His folksy speech and wry humour are engaging and unrelenting, taking the reader from a troubled childhood to an old age of reminiscence. Few first novels have employed imaginative freedom and picaresque invention with such aplomb' Waterstone’s Books Quarterly

O autorovi

Bronia Kita has won various prizes for her writing -- including the Mail on Sunday Novel Competition in 2000, which is what initially persuaded her to switch from writing short stories to longer fiction -- and recently completed an MA in Creative Writing. The Swansong of Wilbur McCrum is her first novel. She lives in London.