A novel set in London in 1990 about a nightmare day for a bored marketing man. Justin Cartwright is also the author of "Masai Dreaming".

In every face I meet

Justin Cartwright

Sceptre

Dan Silas returns to America for his high school reunion where he makes some unexpected discoveries. His former girlfriend tells him that her daughter was his child and Dan's oldest friend has suffered a breakdown and now believes himself to be the reincarnation of an Indian chief. In an attempt to make sense of these disturbing facts, Dan digs further into their lives, with both tragic and comic results. LEADING THE CHEERS is a rich portrayal of small-town life with wonderfully evoked characters and Justin Cartwright's beautifully observed writing.

Leading the Cheers

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Leading the Cheers Tpb

Contemporary

Hodder & Stoughton General Division

Richard McAllister, a young minister in the government, has temporarily left the Cabinet while recovering from being stabbed by a thug at a football match. He has decided, while recuperating, to go to South Africa to research a relative and his account of the horse in the Boer War. While in Mafeking, he is called back to London because his passionate affair with an actress has become public knowledge. From that moment, the love affair becomes almost impossibly fraught. The press hound them, the government spin doctors try to suppress all news and Joanna's husband becomes very vindictive. The lovers are parted, and Joanna goes to America. This is a novel about contemporary politics, the power of film, the nature of history and above all about two people caught hopelessly in love, subject to the stresses of fame and scandal. It is an exceptional achievement.

Half in Love

'A provocative novel about a disillusioned writer who travels to Africa to research a screenplay. Cartwright tellingly contrasts the supposed savagery of the dark continent with the very real barbarism of Nazi Germany and the modern world' - "Esquire" 'Ambitious ...the book works well, as a story, as a compendium of reflections on race and nationhood and as a novel with a refined and distinctive narrative voice and one marvelously complete character, the old White Kenyan, Tom Fairfax ...an elegantly complex, unfailingly intelligent novel' - Lucy Hughes-Hallett, "The Spectator".

Masai Dreaming

Richard McAllister, a young government minister, is recuperating in South Africa after being attacked. Whilst out there, he is called back to London because his passionate affair with an actress has become public news. The love affair now becomes impossibly fraught amidst the fame and scandal.

A motorcycle messenger goes into a small park in London to paint the words 'White Lightning' on the tank of his bike. This is the beginning of an extraordinary novel. It is told over the space of a few months, and in these few months one man's whole life - his failures, his successes, his longing for peace and fulfilment, his loves and his tragedies - are recounted. These memories include his film "Suzi Crispin, Night Nurse", and - the darkest moment - the death of his son, which has haunted him. He inherits a small amount of money and buys a rundown farm in South Africa, where he dreams of creating an Arcadia. On the farm is a captive baboon, Piet, who becomes startlingly involved in his new life. He also has a love affair with a local woman, and becomes hauntingly involved with an African family of squatters. All the while the narrator contemplates his own life back in England and so the novel is also a sharp commentary on what Englishness means. This is a novel about the human enterprise. It is surprising, tender, funny and utterly original.

White Lightning

On 20 July 1944, Adolf Hitler narrowly escaped an assassin's bomb. Axel von Gottberg and his conspirators were hunted down and hanged from meat-hooks, and the executions filmed. Sixty years later, Conrad Senior is left a legacy of papers by von Gottberg's close friend, the legendary Oxford professor Elya Mendel, and becomes obsessed with what they reveal and finding the brutal film. Award-winning writer Justin Cartwright has conjured a masterwork that addresses the nature of friendship and what it means to be human, and it is a remarkable tapestry of passion, ideas, frailty and courage.

The Song Before It Is Sung

Bloomsbury Paperbacks

Now that his wife is dead, retired television news anchor, David Cross, believes that he is more himself than he has been for forty years. When Nancy was alive, he had secrets that he kept from her. Now he has a secret that he must keep from his children, Ed and Lucy, namely that he is in some ways happier now than he was when their mother was alive.  To Heaven by Water is a touching and hilarious portrait of the Cross family, trying in their own fashion to come to terms with their loss. David knows that his children are perplexed by his increasingly compulsive behaviour while Ed's marriage to the lovely Rosalie, a former ballet dancer, is suffering strain, and Lucy is being stalked by her ex-boyfriend. Both children worry that their father will soon find a new partner. Over all three of them hangs the memory of Nancy. The book opens as David is taking time out with his brother in the Kalahari Desert, re-living his tumultuous and uplifting memories of Rome where he worked on a film with Richard Burton. Back home in London, Ed is trying to balance his affair with a young woman in his office with his real love for his wife, who is unable to conceive the child she longs for. And Lucy, who has just been voted No. 6 in the Evening News section devoted to beautiful and brainy women, is a young woman in pursuit of her real self. To Heaven by Water is a wonderful story of friendship, forgiveness and of love that comes from unexpected directions; it is an exploration of what we might hope for from this life and. in particular. the possibility of transcendence. Into the beautifully observed and subtly composed texture of this tale of middle-class London life, Justin Cartwright weaves sudden shocks that tear it apart, moments of sex and revenge that appear from a cloudless sky to take the reader's breath away.

To Heaven by Water

Bloomsbury USA

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Justin Cartwright. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Justin Cartwright

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Justin Cartwright. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

In every face I meet

Leading the Cheers

Leading the Cheers Tpb

Half in Love

Masai Dreaming

Half in Love

White Lightning

White Lightning

The Song Before It Is Sung

To Heaven by Water