‘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 PRIZE
Circles 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.
‘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 PRIZE
Circles 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.
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
Among the most perceptive and accomplished novelists writing today
Beautifully observed
Here is a novel in which there is not a word to spare, yet which shifts cunningly from past to present, from action to reflection . . . Nina Bawden hands the narration over to a middle-aged painted and, to considerable effect, allows him both to tell the tale and to sit at its centre
Plays with time and notions of forgery and fidelity in life and art, as well as tracing with extraordinary exactness and creative tact the pain and survival of loss of a loved one
Nina Bawden's powerful exploration of deception gradually unfolds a moving story about lies and truths, forgery and fidelity, love and loss
Plays with time and notions of forgery and fidelity in life and art, as well as tracing with extraordinary exactness and creative tact the pain and survival of loss of a loved one
Beautifully observed
An ingenious and impeccably constructed novel enlivened by sudden shafts of humour
Unfolds like a Persian carpet in a market place, each new inch surprising . . . As gripping as a thriller and elegant at the same time
A forceful, continually surprising novel . . . engages and entertains at the deepest level
Among the most perceptive and accomplished novelists writing today
Unfolds like a Persian carpet in a market place, each new inch surprising . . As gripping as a thriller and elegant at the same time
