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Shy creatures : a novel / Clare Chambers.
Van Pelt Library PR6053.H2858 S59 2024
By Request
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Chambers, Clare, author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- England--Social life and customs--20th century--Fiction.
- England.
- Secrecy--Fiction.
- Secrecy.
- Adultery--Fiction.
- Adultery.
- Man-woman relationships--Fiction.
- Man-woman relationships.
- Psychiatric hospitals--Fiction.
- Psychiatric hospitals.
- Psychiatric hospital patients--Fiction.
- Psychiatric hospital patients.
- Art teachers--Fiction.
- Art teachers.
- Artists--Fiction.
- Artists.
- Social isolation--Fiction.
- Social isolation.
- Nineteen sixties--Fiction.
- Nineteen sixties.
- Genre:
- Bildungsromans.
- Detective and mystery fiction.
- Historical fiction.
- Novels.
- Physical Description:
- 391 pages ; 24 cm
- Edition:
- First US edition.
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Mariner Books, [2024]
- Summary:
- "The London suburb of Croydon, 1964: Helen Hansford is unmarried and in her thirties. Something of a disappointment to her middle-class parents, she's an art therapist at the Westbury Park psychiatric hospital, where she has been having a rebellious love affair with her colleague Gil, a dashing but married doctor. One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance at a derelict, vine-covered Victorian house a few miles up the road. There the police find a mute, thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, his hair and beard down to his waist. It appears he lives in the old house with his elderly, frail aunt, who expires as soon as she's admitted to the hospital. No one knows why William has been shut away for decades, unseen by neighbors, with only his two now-deceased aunts for company. Westbury Park becomes his refuge. When it emerges that William is not only sane but a talented artist, Helen comes to see him as something of a personal project. But as she tries to solve the puzzle of the Hidden Man's past, Helen's own carefully constructed life of secrets begins to unravel..."-- Provided by publisher.
- Notes:
- Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2024 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 387-388).
- ISBN:
- 9780063258228
- 0063258226
- 9780063423145
- 0063423146
- OCLC:
- 1404054187
- Publisher Number:
- 90100955670
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