Ottawa in the seventies is a field of dreams: a developing city, ripe for the taking. Two men, from different ends of society, see the opportunities: Jerry McGuinty, plasterer-turned-builder, a simple, self-made man, and Simon Struthers, who has inherited wealth and position, all the trappings of success, but is a cipher of a man, with nothing inside him but longing. As their careers and successes run in parallel - Jerry with his new wife, Kathleen, who likes a drink even more than she likes him, and Simon with his endless affairs and intrigues - we begin to see how love is suffocated by work, how individuals are slowly crushed by progress. When both men finally understand what they are losing, and go in search of it, their lives start to intersect, and the story spirals to its astonishing conclusion. This is a thrillingly original novel about ambition and desire, power and corruption. "Some Great Thing" has the same epic emotional grandeeur as "The Great Gatsby". With great skill, and with huge compassion for his broken characters and their thwarted dreams, Colin McAdam has created one of the finest first novels of recent years.

Some Great Thing

Literature & Fiction

Colin McAdam

Contemporary

Vintage Books USA

Chatto Bodley Head & Cape

Fall

PRISTINE CONDITION, SHIPS IN 24 HOURS, ENJOY!

fall

Jonathan Cape Ltd.

Black Dove

Hamish Hamilton

[Read by Joe Barrett] Told simultaneously from the perspective of humans and chimpanzees, A Beautiful Truth -- at times brutal, other times deeply moving -- is about the simple truths that transcend species, the meaning of family, the lure of belonging, and the capacity for survival. Looee is forever set apart, a chimp raised by a well-meaning and compassionate human couple in Vermont who cannot conceive a baby of their own. He's not human, but with his peculiar upbringing he is no longer like other chimps. One tragic night Looee's two natures collide, and this unique family is forever changed. At the Girdish Institute in Florida, a group of chimpanzees has been studied for decades. The work at Girdish has proved that chimps have memories and solve problems, that they can learn language and need friends, and that they build complex cultures. They are political, altruistic, and capable of anger and forgiveness. When Looee is moved to the institute, he is forced to try to find a place in this new world. A Beautiful Truth is an epic and heartfelt story about parenthood, friendship, loneliness, fear, and conflict, about the things we hold sacred as humans and how much we have in common with our animal relatives. A novel of great heart and wisdom from a literary master, it exposes the yearnings, cruelty, and resilience of all great apes.

A Beautiful Truth

Literary

Blackstone Audiobooks

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Books by Colin McAdam