The Chimney Sweeper's Boy
The ninth Barbara Vine novel published by Viking in 1998
The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy began differently from any previous book I’d written. It actually derives from a story a friend—the novel’s dedicatee, Patrick Maher—told me. People are always telling me stories, of course, and suggesting that I make something out of them, but never before this have I felt I wanted to use one. But this I knew I must, it was so horrifying.
When successful author Gerald Candless dies of a sudden heart attack, his eldest, adoring daughter Sarah embarks on a memoir of him and soon discovers that her perfect father was not all he appeared to be.
That, in fact, he wasn’t Gerald Candless at all. But then, who was he? And what terrible secret had driven him to live a lie for all those years?
Notes
- The Chimney Sweeper Moth:
… is also known as The Looping Chimney Sweeper, in reference to its caterpillar, The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy …
Contemporary Reads 2
Karin Fossum - When the Devil Holds the Candle
Denise Mina - Garnethill
Sarah Waters - Tipping the Velvet
Jo Nesbø - Cockroaches
Sebastian Faulks - Charlotte Gray
Michael Cunningham - The Hours
Footnotes
Death in Little Venice, Independent 1998. ↩︎
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