Molly and the Captain

Anthony Quinn

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Paperback

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English

Little Brown
25 October 2022

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Bargains

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- The mighty Quinn is back with his best book since Freya. Three separate stories all linked by a painting. Beginning in the Georgian period and told in an epistolary fashion (maybe a nod to Richardson's Clarrisa) and concluding in the 1980's. This is a story about art, friendship and love told with Quinn's unique style and wit. His love for his characters really shines through and being a bit of a romantic leaves the reader at the conclusion of the book with a comforting glow. Greg

A celebrated artist of the Georgian era paints his two young daughters at the family home in Bath. The portrait, known as Molly &the Captain , becomes instantly famous, its fate destined to echo down the centuries, touching many lives.
In the summer of 1889 a young man sits painting a line of elms in Kensington Gardens. One day he glimpses a mother at play with her two daughters and decides to include them in his picture. From that moment he is haunted by dreams that seem to foreshadow his doom.

A century later, in Kentish Town, a painter and her grown-up daughters receive news of an ancestor linking them to the long-vanished double portrait of Molly &the Captain . Meanwhile friendship with a young musician stirs unexpected passions and threatens to tear the family apart.

Molly & the Captain is a story about time and art and love. Through the prism of a single painting it examines the mysteries of creativity, and the ambiguous nature of success. What weighs more, loyalty to one's talent or loyalty to one's blood? Does self-sacrifice ennoble the soul or degrade it? And what does it mean to speak of the past when its hold on the present is inescapable?

Through Anthony Quinn's signature gifts - period subtlety, intricate characterisation and storytelling verve this triptych novel melds three families and three centuries into a single vision of human frailty and longing.

By: Anthony Quinn
Imprint: Little Brown
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 34mm
Weight: 520g
ISBN: 9781408713228
ISBN 10: 1408713225
Pages: 432
Publication Date: 25 October 2022
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Anthony Quinn was born in Liverpool in 1964. From 1998 to 2013 he was the film critic for the Independent. His novels include The Rescue Man, which won the 2009 Authors' Club Best First Novel Award; Half of the Human Race; The Streets, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Walter Scott Prize; Curtain Call, soon to be a feature film starring Ian McKellen and Gemma Arterton; Freya, Eureka, Our Friends in Berlin and London, Burning. He also wrote the recent Liverpool memoir Klopp.

Reviews for Molly and the Captain

[A] beguiling new novel about the mysteries of creativity from master storyteller Anthony Quinn... Every sentence he produces is a joy * Metro * A gripping mystery... Sweeping across centuries in its three interlinked sections, it summons the past effortlessly, as a vehicle for a plot that is both intricate and immaculately constructed... Quinn's most ambitious book to date and decidedly his best -- Alex Preston * Observer * Quinn is an accomplished writer at ease with the idioms of the past... He is also a subtle creator of character... opens up timeless themes of family, success and love -- Michael Prodger * New Statesman * Quinn is an intelligent analyst of the uncertainties of love and art * Sunday Times * These women's lives are gently and perceptively explored -- Antonia Senior * The Times * Gripping historical fiction * Good Housekeeping *