The Virgin and the Whale, Carl Nixon
The Virgin and the Whale, Carl Nixon
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Virgin and the Whale
A Love Story

Author: Carl Nixon

Narrator: Julian Elfer

Unabridged: 6 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/26/2023


Synopsis

A touching, clever novel about stories, about using them to create your own identity, and about the way they can forge bonds of love.

It is 1919. Elizabeth Whitman is working as a nurse in the local hospital, waiting for her husband to return from war, though he is missing in action, 'presumed dead'. She keeps him alive for their four-year-old son, Jack, by telling the story of a man she calls The Balloonist, who went away in a hot-air balloon and has adventures in exotic countries.

When she is asked to nurse a returned soldier whose head injury has reduced him to an animal-like state with no memory, Elizabeth starts telling her stories to him. It is through them that she manages to engage his interest and offer him a new life . . . in more ways than one.

About Carl Nixon

Carl Nixon is an award-winning short story writer, novelist, and playwright. His first book, Fish 'n' Chip Shop Song and other stories went to number one on the New Zealand bestselling fiction list and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. In 2007 he won the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Short Story Competition.

Nixon completed his first novel while he was the Ursula Bethell/Creative New Zealand Writer in Residence at Canterbury University in 2006. Rocking Horse Road saw him identified as 'a major talent' by North & South, and was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Awards 2009. His second novel, Settlers' Creek, was also long-listed for the IMPAC in 2012. Both novels have also been published in Germany.

His writing for theatre includes The Birthday Boy and The Raft, numerous plays for children, and he has adapted for the stage Lloyd Jones's novel The Book of Fame and JM Coetzee's Disgrace.


Reviews

I've just finished reading this advance copy - I went with my boss to a Random House Road Show a few weeks ago, and each person attending got to select a book to advance-read. I can't remember what the advertising for this was like as there were so many books featured at the event, but it must have......more