The Towers of Trebizond: A Novel

by Rose Macaulay

Overview

Hailed as "an utter delight, the most brilliant witty and charming book I have read since I can't remember when" by The New York Times when it was originally published in 1956, Rose Macaulay's The Towers of Trebizond tells the gleefully absurd story of Aunt Dot, Father Chantry-Pigg, Aunt Dot's deranged camel, and our narrator, Laurie, who are traveling from Istanbul to legendary Trebizond on a convoluted mission. Along the way they will encounter spies, a Greek sorcerer, a precocious ape, and Billy Graham with a busload of evangelists. Part travelogue, part comedy, it is also a meditation on love, faith, doubt, and the difficulties, moral and intellectual, of being a Christian in the modern world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374533632
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	10/30/2012
Series:	FSG Classics
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	754,294
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Dame Rose Macaulay, one of the most popular writers and personalities in England from the 1920s until her death in 1958, was a friend to the likes of E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf. She was the author of more than thirty-five books; Towers of Trebizond is her masterpiece.

Editorial Reviews

"Macaulay’s meticulous, understated storytelling traces the hairline crack between laughter and tears, finds grand universals in ordinary foibles, and speaks, without blush or wink, of sin and repentance."—Paste Magazine

"A small miracle of a novel."—Salon

"It is an extraordinary novel, being not just a witty and lyrically written account of the journey of a heart and soul, but also, a beguiling history lesson, a masterclass in acute social observation, and a remarkable polemic on female emancipation and religious sectarianism."—The Independent

From the Publisher