Towards the End of the Morning

Literature & Fiction

FRAYN, MICHAEL

Contemporary

Vintage/Ebury (A Division of Random House Group)

Sweet dreams

Collins

Michael Frayn's classic novel is set in the crossword and nature notes department of an obscure national newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street, where John Dyson dreams wistfully of fame and the gentlemanly life - until one day his great chance of glory at last arrives. Michael Frayn is the celebrated author of fifteen plays including Noises Off, Copenhagen and Afterlife. His bestselling novels include Headlong, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Spies, which won the Whitbread Best Novel Award and Skios, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. "Still ranks with Evelyn Waugh's Scoop as one of the funniest novels about journalists ever written." (Sunday Times). "A sublimely funny comedy about the ways newspapers try to put lives into words." (Spectator).

Fontana

Sweet Dreams

'Manning's old friend Proctor-Gould was in Moscow and anxious to get in touch with him. Or so Manning was informed. He looked forward to the meeting. He had few friends in Moscow, none of them old friends, and no friends at all, old or new, in Moscow or anywhere else, called Proctor-Gould . . .'  Paul Manning, a young Englishman working on his thesis in Soviet-era Moscow, takes on a part-time job as interpreter for the enigmatic Gordon Proctor-Gould, ostensibly an honest businessman, but possibly involved in more clandestine activities. When Proctor-Gould falls for the mercurial blonde Raya, Manning finds himself in the awkward position of acting as interpreter in their love affair, a situation made even more awkward by Manning's own feelings for her. And when it begins to appear Raya may be a police spy, Manning realizes he may have gotten himself into more than he bargained for ...  Featuring an unusual blend of humor and suspense, Michael Frayn's second novel, The Russian Interpreter (1966), was inspired in part by the author's own experiences in Communist Russia and won the Hawthornden Prize as the best work of imaginative fiction published that year. This edition includes a new introduction by the author.  'Altogether a notable book ... Frayn is now our best equipped younger prose-writer as well as being a very sane and very funny one.' - Times Literary Supplement  'Imaginative and delightful - zany characters who stick in the memory and have a genuine life of their own. Frayn juxtaposes the humorous and the frankly sinister into a satisfying and witty picture.' - Sunday Telegraph  'Full of quirky, quixotic surprises ... will catch your curiosity and convert it into admiration.' - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The Russian Interpreter

HarperCollins, Publishers

A very private life

The Tin Men

'A man sits in his car at the traffic lights, waiting for them to go green...'  Heaven, the Book of Revelation tells us, is a city of pure gold, 1,500 miles high, and decorated in sapphire, amethyst, and emerald. According to the Koran, it is peopled with immortal youths and bashful virgins, and there are jeweled couches on which to recline and enjoy food and drink. But wouldn't most of us feel a little out of our element in such a place? What about a Heaven for ordinary, modern people?  Howard Baker is waiting at a traffic light when suddenly he finds himself in a strange and wondrous city where he can fly, speak any language, and even design the Matterhorn. As we accompany him on his tour of Heaven, we discover a place with limitless possibilities for leisure and enjoyment but one which also presents moral and intellectual challenges and possibilities for personal growth - the perfect heaven for a decent, respectable, professional man like Howard Baker ...  Long regarded as a classic in Great Britain, Michael Frayn's brilliantly funny fantasy Sweet Dreams (1973) returns to print in the U.S. for the first time in decades in this edition, which features a new introduction by the author.  "Frayn is an impeccable writer ... his novel is a kind of Candide - a vividly contemporary Candide - full of the most serious high comedy and the most enormous belly laughs." - New Yorker  "Frayn has a most unusual talent. His books seem so deceptively simple, but they linger in the mind for years, and can be re-read with the greatest pleasure. Sweet Dreams is no exception." - Margaret Drabble, New York Times Book Review  "May go down in history as one of England's special contributions to the twentieth century." - Times Literary Supplement

Sweet Dreams (Flamingo)

'Once upon a time there will be a little girl called Uncumber . . .'  Uncumber lives in the distant future, in a world sharply divided between 'Insiders' and 'Outsiders'. The Insiders lead a privileged existence: never having to leave their homes, they enjoy a vastly prolonged lifespan, a regular supply of food and mind-altering drugs, and holographic entertainment at the push of a button. Meanwhile, the Outsiders, half-savage, inhabit a polluted wilderness of ruins and industrial waste, struggling for survival.  Uncumber has been warned never to go outside. But when she meets an Outsider on the Holovision and falls in love with him, she becomes curious and decides to venture out into the world ...  Equal parts dystopian science fiction and brilliant social satire, Michael Frayn's eerily prescient fourth novel A Very Private Life (1968) earned widespread critical acclaim and comparisons to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. This edition features a new introduction by the author.  'A weird and frightening intensity.' - Time  'Easily the most original thing Frayn has done ... written with elegant simplicity.' - New Statesman  'An ingenious fable ... at times poetically imaginative.' - Sunday Times  'An intriguing fantasy.' - Sunday Telegraph

A Very Private Life

Penguin Books, Ltd.

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