Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018, this powerful and extraordinary novel follows a D-Day veteran as he goes in search of freedom and repair in post-war America.
Robin Robertson was brought up on the north-east coast of Scotland and now lives in London. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he has published five collections of poetry and has received a number of honours, including the Petrarca-Preis, the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and all three Forward Prizes. His selected poems, Sailing the Forest, was published in 2014.
The Long Take is like a film noir on the page. A book about
a man and a city in shock, it's an extraordinary evocation of the
debris and ongoing destruction of war even in times of peace. In
taking a scenario we think we know from the movies but offering a
completely different perspective, Robin Robertson shows the
flexibility a poet can bring to form and style. -- Man Booker
judges' citation
A beautiful, vigorous and achingly melancholy hymn to the common
man that is as unexpected as it is daring . . . The Long
Take is a masterly work of art, exciting, colourful, fast-paced
- the old-time movie reviewer's vocabulary is apt to the case - and
almost unbearably moving. -- John Banville * Guardian *
'Absolutely stunning...his beautiful verse describes things better
than any picture could... The language is astonishing.' -- Arifa
Akbar * Front Row *
The Long Take shows it is perfectly possible to write poetry
which is both accessible and subtle, which has a genuine moral and
social conscience . . . This is a major achievement and will linger
long in the reader's mind -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman on Sunday
*
Composed in a mixture of verse and prose, The Long Take is a
book with a big heart. The beauty of the language will seduce the
reader from the very start. How do we put ourselves back together
in a damaged world? . . . By taking this long journey west - across
New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles - Robin Robertson tells a
universal story. With its undeniable beauty; quiet, modest but
strong pull, this book will shift something in your soul. By the
time you have finished reading it, you won't quite be the same. --
Elif Shafak
As a work of art, this dreamlike exploration is a triumph; as a
timely allegory, it is disturbingly profound... One of the first
major achievements of 21st-century English-language literature. *
Financial Times *
This is a poem-cum-novel by Scottish writer Robin Robertson, the
prize-winning author of five previous poetry collections, which is
a cinematic road trip through America. It's from the point of view
of Walker, a discharged World War II combat vet. Rather than return
to Canada at the end of the war, he drifts from New York to Los
Angeles to San Francisco. There are flashbacks to the war but he
basically walks through an America which changes around him. It's
an incredible achievement, showing how poetry can reach the parts
narrative prose can't. -- Irvine Welsh * Metro *
Robertson has cast a national, cultural, psychological and class
outsider of vibrant and seedy post-war America into a palpable
anti-hero eerily resonant with our contemporary world. The result
is a ravishing achievement. -- Ocean Vuong, author of Night Sky
with Exit Wounds, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize
Like all of Robertson's work, I approached The Long Take
with great anticipation, for few writers so expertly pull the
curtains back on the many collective fictions, both ancient and
new, that constitute our understanding of the world. All of
Robertson's extraordinary gifts as a writer are on display here:
his probing intelligence and wit, the strangely tactile beauty of
his lines, and his stubborn refusal to ignore all that lingers
unaccounted for at the edges of our vision. I was genuinely bowled
over by it. -- Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds
The beauty of The Long Take lies in Robertson's seemingly
effortless ability to evoke the magic of cinema on every page . . .
One of the most moving records in recent times of human fragility,
ambition, injustice, violence, and our deeply troubled path through
cities and nature...The Long Take will be remembered for its
unparalleled originality, and an uncompromising power of
storytelling that transcends the boundaries of film, fiction and
poetry. -- Kit Fan * Poetry Review *
Modern, complex, political ... The Long Take is very much in
line with the tradition that inspired it, not least when Robertson
emphasizes "the dead streets of Los Angeles", and the possibility
that the United States, with its hatred of the other, might soon
turn fascist... The Long Take's larger theme is the capacity
of greed and politics to turn hope into despair. In this way, the
poem speaks to the present as well as to the past. * Los Angeles
Review of Books *
The words flow like the frames of a classic film masterpiece. --
Mike Hodges, filmmaker, Get Carter, Croupier, I'll
Sleep When I'm Dead
Having held his readers in the grip of many small tales, Robin
Robertson now launches into a full narrative telling, which is
alive with the details of post-war American life as well as the
jumpy subjective life of its protagonist. The Long Take will
thrill you with its shadowy mysteries and cinematic intensity. --
Billy Collins
The Long Take is a bullet of a book. It is deeply
noir, scything open post-war Los Angeles to show us a
living, breathing city: a complicated social setting with cinema
layered into its very fabric, a place growing at the expense of
many of its most vulnerable citizens. It is a bold book - both
imaginative and brave - but, more than that, it is a book that hits
its target. It flies. It feels true. -- Ryan Gattis, author of
All Involved
The Long Take, by Robin Robertson, is a narrative in verse
set in the immediate post-war years in America, that is at once
heartbreaking and bracing. Think of it as the best black and white
1940s movie you will ever encounter in print. -- John Banville *
Guardian, Best summer books 2018 *
Robertson has chosen a supremely uncomfortable, recognizable
flashpoint in US history, an almost perfect mirror image of the
nation today: crude, newly unleashed material ambitions mix with
off-the-chart levels of fear and paranoia. -- Todd McEwen * Sunday
Herald *
Robin Robertson's wonderful new book is hard to classify. It would
be possible to review The Long Take as if it were a novel,
even a thriller of sorts . . . This is a poetic work in which human
degradation is afforded fleetingly beautiful expression . . . It
reads at time as a secular Pilgrim's Progress and many of it's
sequences put me in mind of Denis Johnson's reports from the abyss
of drugs and drink. * Literary Review *
The Long Take is written in precise, deliberate English of
lyric grandeur. True literature at its most compelling. -- Eileen
Battersby
A blisteringly beautiful vision of America rotting in the aftermath
of the Second World War . . . Robertson's book is stylish, daring,
high concept and amazing. * Evening Standard *
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
