Exposure

Prominent lawyer Alistair Langford has worked hard to achieve his immense ambitions, but in the course of just one evening he recklessly destroys everything. The scandal threatens his marriage and exposes a secret he has hidden his entire adult life. Meanwhile, his son Luke, who has led a privileged life but also has worked hard to achieve his own success, has fallen in love with a beautiful actress. When she suddenly leaves him, he plummets into a dangerous depression. His ideals in tatters, he seeks a kind of redemption by taking in two asylum seekers from Kosovo, whose struggles contrast starkly and poignantly with his own. A deftly plotted, highly suspenseful, and astutely observed morality tale, Exposure explores the dangerous pleasure of offering charity, the effects of deceit and shame on a rigidly complacent family, and the nature of love among family and friends.

Literature & Fiction

Stevenson, Talitha

Literary

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

A brilliantly observed modern morality tale, Talitha Stevenson’s Exposure explores the terrible effects of deceit, obsession, and shame on a dangerously complacent family. Alistair Langford, a respected and powerful barrister, has been hiding his past since he left his hometown of Dover to study at Oxford in the late 1950s. Embarrassed by his working-class upbringing in a guesthouse run by his single mother, with whom he has not had any contact for forty years, he has lied about himself to everyone in his life since Oxford, including his wife, Rosalind, and his two children, Luke and Sophie. But after the death of his mother and a one-night stand with a devious defense witness, his tightly woven tapestry of lies begins to unravel. Exposure is a deftly plotted, psychologically suspenseful, and compulsively readable novel from one of the most exciting young fiction writers today.

United States

Mariner Books

Nineteen-year-old Emily spends the endless summer before college going out all night, sleeping all day, and reveling in the aura of her beautiful boyfriend, Tom, and his fashionable friends. But the luster soon begins to fade, and she is left feeling lonely and directionless. Unwilling to accept the only futures she knows--the misery and jealousy of Tom's divorced parents or the hushed tensions that envelop her parents' marriage--Emily embarks on a quest for genuine intimacy and is drawn to her boyfriend's married older cousin, Simon. Their affair forces her to confront her own sense of right and wrong and to make the same decisions about love, loyalty, and betrayal that are at the heart of the unraveling relationships of the adults around her. An Empty Room was short-listed for the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2003. Beautifully written, it takes readers through a moral maze of subtle splendor.

An Empty Room

Unlike typical coming-of-age novels, An Empty Room looks at youthful cynicism and narcissism seriously. Twenty-seven-year-old Talitha Stevenson does not patronize the emotional lives of her characters with glib humor, coy wit, or fanciful nostalgia. Inspired by her own experience of growing up too fast among families affected by divorce, Stevenson’s debut questions our perceptions of sexual intimacy as an endlessly renewable resource and asks if it is possible to simply use it up. Nineteen-year-old Emily lives a carefree life filled with swinging parties, plenty of drugs and alcohol, and sex with Tom, the seemingly perfect boyfriend. But when the luster of wild nights begins to fade, Emily is left jaded and directionless. Unwilling to accept the only futures she knows—whether it be the misery and jealousy of Tom's divorced parents or the hushed tensions that envelop her own parents' marriage—she begins a quest for a more genuine intimacy. The search leads her into a complex affair with the affable yet mysterious Simon, who is married. As their relationship approaches the breaking point, Emily is forced to make the same decisions regarding love, loyalty, and betrayal that are at the heart of the unraveling relationships of her parents and their friends.

An Empty Room: A Novel

Carroll&Graf

Alistair Langford, a high-powered lawyer, has at long last achieved 'almost all' his immense ambitions. But in the course of just one evening, he recklessly destroys it all. The scandal threatens his marriage and his family and even his own identity. Quite suddenly a secret he has kept hidden all his adult life is exposed. Meanwhile his son Luke is obsessed with a beautiful actress and refuses to believe that love has ended. His ideals in tatters, he seeks a kind of redemption by helping two Kosovan asylum seekers. But illegal night shifts merge uneasily with the parties of the young and wealthy and the collision of the two worlds proves dangerous. Desperate and in the unlikely possession of a gun, Luke is being led down a dark and violent path. Talitha Stevenson's second novel is a highly suspenseful story about sexual obsession, identity and the dangers of self-deceit. An exploration of the nature of love - in long married couples, the young, parents, between siblings and friends - it is also a morality tale for our times by one of the finest young writers at work today.

Genre Fiction

VIRAGO PRESS LIMITED (ENGLAND)

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

Books by Stevenson, Talitha

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

Exposure

Exposure

An Empty Room

An Empty Room: A Novel

Exposure