A recently divorced, early retiree accidentally burns down his house on the day he pays off the mortgage, only to discover that an uncharacteristic oversight has pitted him against an impassive corporate bureaucracy. An old friend of his, a middleaged musician, enters into a final negotiation with the pain of esophageal cancer. Her father, who left his family years ago to practise Buddhism in Nepal, ends his days in a facility for Alzheimer’s patients. These three are tied together by a book called The World, written by the old man in his youth.Possibly autobiographical, the book tells the story of a historian who unearths a cache of letters, written in Chinese, in an abandoned leper colony off the coast of Victoria. He and the young Chinese translator fall in love, only to betray each other in the cruelest way possible, each violating what the other reveres most.
Magnificently written, structurally daring, and a masterful blend of imagination and observation, The World is arguably the greatest achievement so far of Bill Gaston’s career.
- ISBN10 014318086X
- ISBN13 9780143180869
- Publish Date 13 August 2013 (first published 25 September 2012)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 19 January 2021
- Publish Country CA
- Imprint Penguin Books Canada
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 376
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780143180869