The Courage Consort
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Three novellas filled with “gallows humor and a sense of real peril,” by the acclaimed author of The Book of Strange New Things (The New York Times).
The bestselling author of The Crimson Petal and the White “draws his characters with assured comic efficiency” (The Guardian), using “evocative language” to offer up “intriguing glimpses of unfamiliar worlds” (Los Angeles Times), in these acclaimed novellas.
In “The Courage Consort,” an a cappella vocal ensemble is sequestered in a Belgian château to rehearse a monstrously complicated new piece, but competing artistic temperaments and sexual needs create as much discordance as the avant-garde music. In “The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps,” a lonely woman joins an archaeological dig at Whitby Abbey and unearths a mystery involving a long-hidden murder. And in “The Fahrenheit Twins,” strange children, identical in all but gender, are left alone at the icy zenith of the world by their anthropologist parents to create their own ritual civilization.
From a wildly inventive author whose novel The Book of Strange New Things was named one of 2014’s best reads by everyone from the New Yorker to io9, The Courage Consort is an eclectic collection of well-told tales, in which Michel Faber “marches on, establishing himself as one of the most versatile fiction writers working today” (Kirkus Reviews).
“Readers will again be immersed in the intense worlds he creates.” —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A starred review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred review.THE COURAGE CONSORTMichel Faber. Harcourt, $23 (240p) The loss of innocence, the urgency of sexual need and the persistence of inner demons unite these three fine novellas, further evidence of the wide-ranging imagination, ironic humor and incisive characterization Faber displayed in The Crimson Petal and the White. Si n, in "The 199 Steps," is working on an archeological dig in England when she encounters Mack, a gorgeous fitness buff. As Si n and Mack try to decipher the clues to a 1788 murder, Si n's dreams of a handsome man slitting her throat grow in intensity, paralleling the grisly facts she brings to light. The denouement is surprising and satisfying for what does not happen. In "The Fahrenheit Twins," Tainto'lilith and Marko'cain are pre-adolescent twin brother and sister living in the Arctic tundra with their eccentric parents, both anthropological researchers. When their mother dies, their father encourages them to voyage alone into the wilderness with her body tied to a sled. Catherine Courage, of the title story, is the soprano member of an avant-garde musical ensemble that has gathered in a Belgian chateau to rehearse a fiendishly difficult piece. Suffering through a July heat wave, Catherine is driven to desperation by an eerie cry she hears in the night. A tragedy, however, provides the reality shock she needs. While this is a slighter effort than Faber's previous work, readers will again be immersed in the intense worlds he creates.
