The Roundabout Man
On sale
2nd February 2012
Price: £17.99
Who is the Roundabout Man?
He doesn’t look like a tramp, yet he lives on a roundabout in a caravan and survives on the leftovers from a nearby motorway service station. He calls himself Quinn, the name of a boy in a world-famous series of children’s books, but he’s nearer retirement than childhood.
What he hopes no one will discover is that he’s the real Quinn, immortalised as a child by his mother in her entrancing tales about a little boy’s adventures with his triplet sisters. It is this inheritance he has successfully run away from – until now. When Quinn’s reclusive existence is invaded, he has to turn and face his past, and all the uncomfortable truths it contains about himself, his sisters and, most of all, his mother.
By the author of Astonishing Splashes of Colour and The Man Who Disappeared, The Roundabout Man delivers a wittily observed slice of modern life as it plumbs the gulf between nostalgia and reality.
He doesn’t look like a tramp, yet he lives on a roundabout in a caravan and survives on the leftovers from a nearby motorway service station. He calls himself Quinn, the name of a boy in a world-famous series of children’s books, but he’s nearer retirement than childhood.
What he hopes no one will discover is that he’s the real Quinn, immortalised as a child by his mother in her entrancing tales about a little boy’s adventures with his triplet sisters. It is this inheritance he has successfully run away from – until now. When Quinn’s reclusive existence is invaded, he has to turn and face his past, and all the uncomfortable truths it contains about himself, his sisters and, most of all, his mother.
By the author of Astonishing Splashes of Colour and The Man Who Disappeared, The Roundabout Man delivers a wittily observed slice of modern life as it plumbs the gulf between nostalgia and reality.
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Reviews
Morrall's fictional eye is set firmly on the quirks of the individual. It is an approach that has served her brilliantly...And Quinn fits the mould wonderfully. Morrall writes with poise and delicacy, and her subjects are delightfully offbeat.
Morrall has always excelled at portraying individuals who are out of kilter with the world and critical of it...The fundamental mystery of the artistic imagination is one of the threads that run through Morrall's novel, along with its destructive effects on those in proximity to the artist and the extent to which every life is fictional...Best of all is the portrait of the hapless Quinn. Despite his glamorous back story, he has no outstanding qualities yet is quietly fascinating.
well-tempered and charming... Morrall's language is clear, simple and precise, much like a children's story itself, so that the effect is as if you are returning to those simpler days of storytelling at your parents' feet. But, as she makes clear, they were never that simple....[she] discusses the blurring of fiction and reality with a sapient, often sorrowful humour.
Clare Morrall brings her flair for capturing people on the periphery of society to the fore in this witty look at the gulf between past and present, and childhood nostalgia.
...a warm and wise novel about celebrity and the clash between childhood nostalgia and reality...
Witty and well-observed...With its relentless attention to detail, packed with secrets and revelations, this is a novel to be explored as much as enjoyed. Morrall invites us to abandon ourselves to the thrill of discovery as we join Quinn on his final adventure, and it's a very welcome invitation
The storyline is well-crafted, but what distinguishes this novel is its terrific cast, with vividly drawn principals and bit-parts alike - truly impressive and really enjoyable.
Quinn's secret...Why he's had to hide from his mother and - much more to the point - from his own life is beautifully, lyrically and subtly unfolded here by Clare Morrall, a novelist to watch.
This is an extremely interesting novel. Beneath the reality of the story set in the present, its characters brought vividly to life, there is another and deeply unsettling world: of the false and the real, identity and memory, and the traps of the past.
her books stand apart from the crowd, because of the people in them - troubled, awkward individuals, the kind of well-rounded characters who don't ask to be liked. Characters such as Quinn Smith, who lives in a caravan on a roundabout off the M6 eking out a living from what others throw away and the kindness of staff at the nearby service station...Both startling and wise.