Arcade Publishing 20100903 eng

GCDS-9781559704953 03 01 Arcade Publishing 01 GCOI 55970100299500 02 1559704950 03 9781559704953 15 9781559704953 BB 1 A01 Magnus Mills Magnus Mills was a London bus driver for a dozen years. Before that he did a number of odd jobs, some of them involving dangerous machinery. He finally stopped driving buses early in 1999, after the worldwide success of <em>The Restraint of Beasts.</em>He and his wife Sue live in London. 01 eng 02 eng 211 01 From the author of <em>The Restraint of Beasts--</em>hailed by Thomas Pynchon as a "comic wonder" and shortlisted for the prestigious Booker and Whitbread Prizes--a novel that proves Magnus Mills to be the master of darkness comical.<p>Told with insidiously beguiling deadpan charm, <em>All Quiet on the Orient Express</em>gives us the story of an itinerant odd-jobber--our narrator--watching the dregs of the summer run out in a run-down campground in England's Lake District, and waiting to set off for the East. ("East. You know, Turkey, Persia, and then . . . India.") Quiet, unassuming, hardworking, he doesn't seem like the adventurous type, but traveling to the Orient has always been his dream--something to think about when you're eating beans out of a can and staring at the campfire. When the owner of the campground offers him a small painting job, our hero thinks it would be rude to refuse. Only a small paint job with some green paint. Where's the harm? Besides, he could use the money to buy some more beans. One job leads to another, each stranger and more inscrutable than the one before. Before long he is hopelessly and hilariously enmeshed in the off-season mysteries of a placid northern community, grappling with dark forces beyond his power--some of which hang out at the local pub.<p>Like <em>The Restraint of Beasts, All Quiet on the Orient Express</em>seems destined to become a classic, and establishes beyond doubt that Magnus Mills is a peerless craftsman of the uncanny. 02 From the author of <em>The Restraint of Beasts,</em>a finalist for the Booker and Whitbread Prizes, a novel that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Magnus Mills is a master of dark comedy. 08 Booker and Whitbread Prize-finalist, Mills maintains his reputation as a wry humorist, here transforming a fly-by-night entrepreneurial work ethic into a cue for a Kafkaesque comedy of manual labor. <em>Publishers Weekly</em> 08 A journey through Purgatory takes amusing, appropriately elusive form in this mordant second novel by the English author of <em>The Restraint of Beasts</em>. . . Both <em>Pilgrim's Progress</em>and the nearly forgotten novels of T.F.Powys come to mind. Still, this is an original and haunting creation: a vision of Judgement whose very opacity gives it impressive symmetry, comedy, and power. <em>Kirkus starred review</em> 08 What one loves about Magnus Mills (aside from the fact that he was a London bus driver until his first novel, "The Restraint of Beasts," made him famous) is that he can make the contents of a garage suspenseful. . . . Like Hitchcock, Mills reveals the mystery in everything from grocery lists to the unemotional intentions of simple country people. <em>LA Times Book Review</em> 08 In the past year, Mills has become a British literary sensation. This, his second novel is even more compelling and absurd than the first. Francisca Goldsmith <em>Library Journal</em> 08 [<em>All Quiet on the Orient Express</em>]is an interesting outing for an author who is sure to have a strong future. <em>Booklist</em> 08 Mills' new novel, another straight-faced British chortle that will hook the reader as securely as the previous book. . . . Mills' wonderful ear for dialogue is matched by his infallible eye for eccentric detail. . . . Not since Kafka has an author lured his audience so innocently, so beguilingly, into hell. Look, no tricks, declares Mills' plain descriptive prose. And by the time the reader has discovered that the story has no conscience either, it's too late.<p>And that Mills, so clearly a great British humorist, remains a bus driver . . . this is his most exquisite, most Millsian joke. Long may he maintain his homely disguise among us, if this permits him to manufacture such wonderful, hilarious and murderous confections. Carey Harrison <em>San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle</em> 08 Mills is expert at capturing the rhythms of the everyday, noncommunicative speech we engage in. Very funny, often frightening in ways that remind one of one's own struggles at work, <em>All Quiet on the Orient Express</em>is a sardonic attack on the work ethic that is a wonderful read. Brian Evenson <em>Review of Contemporary Fiction</em> 23 01 http://www.arcadepub.com/resources/titles/55970100299500/extras/55970100299500.html 04 02 72 01 http://www.arcadepub.com/resources/titles/55970100299500/images/55970100299500L.gif 07 02 72 01 http://www.arcadepub.com/resources/titles/55970100299500/images/55970100299500S.gif http://www.arcadepub.com/book/?GCOI=55970100299500 01 Arcade Publishing http://www.arcadepub.com US 04 19990901 Arcade Publishing 01 IP 01 23.95 USD