A brilliant modern fairy tale by the highly praised author of
Little Infamies and
The Maze.It is the summer of 1975. An Onassis-like tycoon is nearing the end of his life. When he finds out that his daughter, with whom he’s having a problematic relationship, is pregnant by a man he does not approve of, he has a birthday party for her on his private island, secretly intending to persuade her to end the pregnancy: a doctor is standing by to perform the procedure on the spot. The story starts on the morning of the party before the guests arrive and ends the following day when all the guests are gone. The novel intersperses the events that take place before, during and after the party with flashbacks to the tycoon’s rise to wealth and fame, from his childhood in Asia Minor in the 1920s to old age, via Buenos Aires, New York, London and Paris.
Author Biography
Panos Karnezis was born in Greece in 1967 and came to England in 1992. He studied engineering at Oxford and worked in industry before starting to write in English. He studied for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. His first book,
Little Infamies (2002) is a collection of connected short stories set in a nameless Greek village, and his second book,
The Maze (2004) is a novel set in Anatolia in 1922. It was shortlisted for the 2004 Whitbread First Novel Award. Panos Karnezis lives in London.
Reviews
As clever plotting and dramatic irony build a page-turning momentum, Timoleon engages sympathy even in the midst of his follies,Both a serious meditation on masculinity and commercial power…and a rollicking beach-read…fans of Karnezis will not be disappointed. Marco is a huge and splendidly flawed hero for a five-star novel,Such careful and subtle patterning confirms Karnezis as a novelist of unusual gifts,Karnezis wise fable gestures towards a dawning era, in which vacuous yet powerful celebrity finds its ultimate apotheosis,The reader grows to love his detestable characters and this, along with the way he takes the mundane and cranks it up into madness, is the secret of Karnezis’ appeal
