Circles Of Deceit

Nina Bawden

From Shelf: The Booker Prize 1987 Shortlist

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, this marvellous novel is about the heroic yet impossible desire to protect another human being with love.

'Beautifully observed' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH'Among the most perceptive and accomplished novelists writing today' P. D. JAMES'Nina Bawden's powerful exploration of deception gradually unfolds a moving story about lies and truths, forgery and fidelity, love and loss' THE BOOKER PRIZECircles of Deceit is narrated by a painter who specialises as a copyist, this is his story: 'bothered by bills and artistic conscience in about equal measure . . . susceptible to, bullied and badgered by women.'Major figures on the canvas are Clio, his child-bride; Helen, his first wife; and his mother Maisie. They confound lies and the truth in a subtle weave while the silent agony of the painter's son is a poignant reflection on the busy web of deception. And as the copyist transcribes his modern versions of Old Masters, the past keeps breaking through the surface of the present, until fact and fiction like art and life meet in a remarkable conclusion.

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