{"title":"Books by Howard Cunnell","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781529030945","title":"The Painter's Friend","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘One of the books of the year. Cunnell’s style is matchless: intimate, dark, sincere, wry and exquisitely beautiful’ – \u003ci\u003eIrish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘A cracking, urgent page-turner of a novel\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e’ – \u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe painter Terry Godden was on the brink of his first success. After a violent crisis, he finds himself outcast.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn his fifties, and with little money, he retreats to a small island. Arriving in the winter, the island at first seems a desolate and forgotten place. As the seasons turn, Terry begins to see the island’s beauty, and discovers that he is only one of many people who have sought refuge here. These independent outsiders, all with their own considerable struggles, have made a precarious home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe island is owned by the business man and art collector Alex Kaplan. His decision to enforce a rent increase as he seeks to improve his property looks set to destroy this community that cannot afford to lose the little they have left. As an artist, Terry believes making the invisible struggles of the island visible to the world will help – but will his interference save anybody other than himself?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Painter’s Friend \u003c\/i\u003eshows the human cost of gentrification for those dispossessed. The novel also explores the role of art in protest, and asks who gets to be an artist and what they owe in return. Written with visual lyricism and driven clarity, Howard Cunnell’s incendiary story about class and resistance builds to an unforgettable climax. It is an urgent novel for our unjust times.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘\u003cb\u003eI loved it. Cunnell’s writing has an unforgettable visual and moral clarity\u003c\/b\u003e’ – \u003cb\u003eMelissa Harrison, author of \u003ci\u003eAll Among the Barley\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43204641718450,"sku":"9781529030945","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781529030945_8cc05931-e4ba-458c-8343-518d67561c3d.jpg?v=1786022382"},{"product_id":"9781509812448","title":"Fathers and Sons","description":"\u003cp\u003e‘There is so much aching love in this book, such pain and beauty. Behold, and rejoice.’ – Tim Winton, author of \u003ci\u003eCloudstreet\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWas he thinking, do I have to be this kind of boy to survive? Is this what being a boy is?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a boy growing up on the south coast of England, Howard Cunnell’s sense of self was dominated by his father’s absence. Now, years later, he is a father, and his daughter is becoming his son.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStarting with his own childhood in the Sussex beachlands, Howard tells the story of the years of self-destruction that defined his young adulthood and the escape he found in reading and the natural world. Still he felt compelled to destroy the relationships that mattered to him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSaved by love and responsibility, Cunnell charts his journey from anger to compassion, as his daughter Jay realizes he is a boy, and a son.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost of all, this is a story about love – its necessity and fragility, and its unequalled capacity to enable us to be who we are.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDeeply thoughtful, searingly honest and exquisitely lyrical,\u003ci\u003e Fathers and Sons\u003c\/i\u003e is an exploration of fatherhood, masculinity, authenticity and family.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302673690997,"sku":"9781509812448","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781509812448_be5aa013-3699-4dad-ac8c-86b453cd26f5.jpg?v=1786021689"},{"product_id":"9781526691606","title":"Sun Country","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'One of Britain's most distinctive and trustworthy voices ... A beautiful book' \u003c\/b\u003eTIM WINTON\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A book to lose yourself inside, and emerge from with enhanced clarity and wisdom' \u003c\/b\u003eFRANCES WILSON\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Tender and unflinching ... A masterclass in clarity and feeling'\u003c\/b\u003e JIM CRACE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Cunnell writes with so much sensitivity to the sacredness of the everyday' \u003c\/b\u003eSARA BAUME\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA beautifully written, courageous and deeply moving journey from sorrow to acceptance, from loss to hope, shimmering with coastal light and hard-won wisdom.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eSun Country\u003c\/i\u003e, Howard Cunnell returns to the southern England beachlands of his boyhood after the death of his mother.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA love letter to the changing coast and sea, \u003ci\u003eSun Country \u003c\/i\u003eis a book alive with light and shadow, where the white spaces between words are as charged with tension and power as the words themselves. It is a reckoning with the things we inherit – silence and absence, stories told and untold – and the transgression involved in turning a life into art. At the heart of the book is Gillian, his devoted single mother, and the small yet unforgettable details of her life that are woven into a powerful meditation on impermanence, grief, class and solitude.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt once intimate and expansive, this luminous memoir traces one man’s journey from loss back towards life. Through stories about the writers and painters with whom he feels a kinship – including the English Romantics, W. H. Hudson and Agnes Martin – and the history of his own Sussex working-class family, Cunnell writes his way home to a place, to a culture and to himself as an artist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCunnell’s descriptive power, so widely praised in his first memoir, reaches a new breathtaking level, with the simplicity that only comes from the finest craft and poetry.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":56368987799925,"sku":"9781526691606","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57682654462325,"sku":"9781526691590","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781526691606_3b5d0766-f0ae-46b5-ac6a-fa72f808b0ae.jpg?v=1792511579"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-howard-cunnell.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}