About the Author

ANDREW MILLER's novel Ingenious Pain won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the International IMPAC Award. He was short-listed for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award for his novel Oxygen.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR OXYGEN "It grabs your attention to the last page."--Daily Express (UK) "An admirably restrained piece of writing, tender, funny, witty, profound. Oxygen confirms Miller's exceptional gifts and leaves one gasping for more."
--The Sunday Herald (UK) PRAISE FOR INGENIOUS PAIN
"Miller's genius is that there is . . . a surprise in nearly every sentence,
and sometimes a miracle, too."--The Boston Globe
--

Miller provides the listener with some terrific descriptions and some intriguing ideas on life and death. What starts out as four stories-Alice Valentine's cancer; her son Larry's failing career and marriage; his brother Alec's inability to deal with either Alice's illness or Larry's past successes; and playwright Lazlo Lazar's coming to terms with a personal failure during the Hungarian uprising of 1956-all well read by Gordon Griffin, ends as two narrative lines, perhaps leading to new beginnings for the Valentines, perhaps a violent end for Lazlo. This is a complicated investigation that looks into the why and why not of existence and the extent to which people can exert control over the life in which they find themselves trapped. There are lots of plot strands that Miller leaves for the listener to connect. Some appear to be dead ends; some describe ambiguous ties, such as Alec translating Lazlo's play Oxygen: the pointless exertion of effort underground by a trapped miner running low on air, contrasted with his girlfriend's violent, noisy, and ultimately ineffectual actions on the surface. Recommended.-Cliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

PRAISE FOR OXYGEN "It grabs your attention to the last page."--Daily Express (UK) "An admirably restrained piece of writing, tender, funny, witty, profound. Oxygen confirms Miller's exceptional gifts and leaves one gasping for more."
--The Sunday Herald (UK) PRAISE FOR INGENIOUS PAIN
"Miller's genius is that there is . . . a surprise in nearly every sentence,
and sometimes a miracle, too."--The Boston Globe
--