Manyebook

Time Among the Dead

William, the Seventh Earl of Upton,

is dying. His grandson, Seabold,

has given him a journal in which the

old man unwillingly at first, but soon

with a strange compulsion begins to

record the last months of his time on

earth. But a daily account of life at

Upton Hall, the decaying estate in which

this late-Victorian lord has spent his

entire life, is quickly overtaken by violent

recollections of William's childhood,

a past he has heretofore managed

to repress, as well as even stranger intimations

of the future, of ourselves, the

readers, chancing upon this document

some hundred years later, and of the

predicaments we find ourselves in today.

These three strands, past, present, and

future, are braided together as our

unlikely hero speaks to both himself and

to the not-yet-living, finally seeing his

life whole and extracting from it the lessons

he has learned, lessons learned for

our benefit as well as his own.

Time Among the Dead conjures up the

lost world of the English countryside,

with its eccentric aristocracy, stolid tenant

farmers, and striving middle class.

Romantic love and a mystical appreciation

of nature vie with the gloom of family

secrets and the growing apprehension that

a time, a way of life, is passing irrevocably

away. A figure by turns tragic and

screamingly funny, William proves to be a

sage guide, reminding us that the human

condition changes little over the years. By

the end, it is unclear who has visited

whom, only that we have made and

lost a friend.

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 158
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781579622015
  • Genres
  • fiction
  • Release date
  • 2010