Description

An aging, recently widowed literary dandy—Axel Vander—narrates his own unraveling with dazzling intelligence and unsettling unreliability, as a threatening letter from a young woman pulls the past into the present. Set against the aftershocks of Europe’s catastrophes, his story turns on secrets, moral compromise, and the uneasy performance of intellect when it masks cruelty. As Vander is drawn into a web of recognition and accusation, the novel explores obsession, guilt, and the ways language can both seduce and condemn. In Banville’s signature style—lyrical, exacting, and darkly ironic—*Shroud* delivers a hard, cruel meditation on identity and the stories we tell to survive them.

Available Editions

hardcover edition cover

hardcover

Picador

Published Sep 20, 2002

416 pages

ISBN: 9780330483155

available

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Details

First Published

2002

Language

eng

Content Warnings

Content and trigger warnings for Shroud by John Banville.

Death/Grief
Suicide/Self-Harm