Copyright Date:
2021
Edition Date:
2021
Release Date:
04/13/21
Pages:
309 pages
ISBN:
1-635-42166-7
ISBN 13:
978-1-635-42166-8
Dewey:
Fic
LCCN:
2022513277
Dimensions:
22 cm
Language:
English
"Keep it together, Tristan," he tells me quietly, putting a hand around my shoulder as his eyes search to make and hold a connection with my own, his fingers pressing tightly around my flesh, sending a current of electricity through me despite my grief; it's only the second time he's touched me since England--the first was when he helped to lift me off the floor of the deluged trench--and the only time he's spoken to me since the boat.
"Keep it together, yes? For all our sakes."
I step closer to him and he pats my arm in consolation, leaving his hand there longer than is necessary.
"What did Rigby mean when he said he was sorry to hear about...well, he didn't finish his sentence."
"It doesn't matter," I say, moving forward in my grief to put my head down on his shoulder, and he pulls me to him for a moment, his hand at the back of my head, and I am almost certain that his lips brush the top of my hair but then Turner and Sergeant Clayton come into sight, the loud voice of the latter complaining about some new disaster, and we separate once again. I wipe the tears from my eyes and look at him but he's turned away and my thoughts return to my oldest friend, dead like so many others. I wonder why in God's name I ever went to look at Rich, Parks, and Denchley's bodies when I could have been in my foxhole all this time, grabbing a few minutes' sleep, and knowing nothing about any of this, nothing about home or Chiswick High Street, my mother, my father, Peter, or the whole bloody lot of them. "
Excerpted from The Absolutist: A Novel by John Boyne
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
“A moving and deeply felt tribute to a love that dared to speak its name." —André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name
A new edition of the beloved novel most similar thematically to the author’s mega-bestseller The Heart’s Invisible Furies
It is September 1919, and twenty-one-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver a package of letters to the sister of Will Bancroft, the man he fought alongside during the Great War.
But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan’s visit. He can no longer keep a secret and has finally found the courage to unburden himself of it. As he recounts the horrific details of what to him became a senseless war, he also speaks of his friendship with Will–from their first meeting on the training grounds at Aldershot to their farewell in the trenches of northern France. The intensity of their bond brought Tristan happiness and self-discovery as well as confusion and unbearable pain.
The Absolutist is a masterful, unforgettable tale of passion, jealousy, heroism, and betrayal set in one of the most gruesome trenches of France during World War I.