Lighthousekeeping (15 page)

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Authors: Jeanette Winterson

BOOK: Lighthousekeeping
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SURF

www.jeanettewinterson.com

A comprehensive site, produced by the author, with information on each book as well as her other writings. Also includes reading suggestions and a bookshop.

www.nlb.org.uk/ourlights/history/
capewrath.htm

The Northern Lighthouses Board’s website has lots of historical and practical information, including a page on each of the lighthouses for which it is responsible including this one for Cape Wrath Lighthouse.

www.nts.org.uk

Stay in a Scottish lighthouse. The National Trust for Scotland’s website has links to the various lighthouses and keepers’ cottages available for holiday lets.

LISTEN…

Tristan und Isolde

Richard Wagner

Acknowledgements

Thank you very much to Caroline Michel and Marcella Edwards and everyone at HarperPress. And to Philippa Brewster, Henri Llewelyn Davies, Rachel Holmes and Zoe Silver.

About the Author

J
EANETTE
W
INTERSON’S
first novel,
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,
won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel. Since then she has published seven other novels, including
The Passion, Written on the Body
and
The PowerBook,
a collection of short stories,
The World and Other Places,
a book of essays,
Art Objects,
and most recently a children’s picture book,
The King of Capri.
She has adapted her work for TV, film and stage. Her books are published in 32 countries. She lives in Oxfordshire and London. Visit her website: www.jeanettewinterson.com

For automatic updates on Jeanette Winterson visit harperperennial.co.uk and register for AuthorTracker.

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Praise

From the reviews of
Lighthousekeeping:

‘Winterson’s unique voice can’t be underestimated…the originality of her lyrical gift is breathtaking.
Lighthousekeeping
is a slim but lovely Winterson classic…You want to savour every salt-decayed description…She is a true innovator of form’

J
OANNA
B
RISCOE
,
Guardian

‘A brilliant, glittering piece of work, the kind that makes you gasp out loud at the sheer beauty of the language. The key note of Winterson’s prose is pared down elegance, here charged with a luminous, lyrical intensity’

Independent

‘An entrancing, gleaming crystal of a book which left me bereft when it was over…
Lighthousekeeping
shows Winterson spinning fairy stories with the lightest touch, treating us to a virtuoso display of imaginative fiction’

Independent on Sunday

‘Other novelists have been fascinated by the symbolism of the lighthouse…but few have conjured up its lonely magic so beautifully or with such melancholy grace…The hypnotic, pared-down, allusive style is witty, heartbreaking and charming’

A
MANDA
C
RAIG
,
The Times

‘Such a delight that it seems almost to take you by surprise. Winterson’s writing is incredibly spare to the point of poetry: there is not a superfluous word here, which makes for that all too rare a gift – writing you want to savour, remember, even memorise…Winterson has an unusual winning combination of slow, languid, descriptive language and a suspense-filled plot which speed you through this gem, perfect for curling up with on dark, lonely nights’

Daily Express

‘A marvellously skilful juggling act of ideas and emotion…Winterson’s prodigious talent brings the book alive’

J
USTINE
P
ICARDIE
,
Evening Standard

‘There is something rare and rather beautiful about Jeanette Winterson’s writing. Never needlessly embellished, often darkly droll, it is spare but rich; timeless yet fresh’

Time Out

‘Delicious…a beguiling mix of fairy tale and steely emotional truths…Lovers of kisses, shipwrecks, seahorses and sadness will be entranced’

Elle

‘A sheer delight…The success of
Lighthousekeeping
lies in its complete disregard for fact in favour of fantasy, and in the seductive richness of its language’

Scotland on Sunday

‘Poetic, funny and fantastical…there is plenty to intrigue, entertain and touch the reader’

Mail on Sunday

‘Rich in language, experimental in form, fierce in its engagement, but it has an elegant simplicity’

Scotsman

‘Structure, content and style all complement each other irresistibly…
Lighthousekeeping
shows that as a storyteller Winterson still shines tall and true’

Glasgow Herald

‘Assertively written, intricately structured, artful and allusive, thick with Winterson’s characteristic word-play, puns on literal and metaphorical meanings’

TLS

‘Fresh and inventive, with many flashes of brilliance…No one chooses a metaphor as perfectly as Winterson, one of contemporary English literature’s most original voices’

Sunday Tribune

By the same author

FICTION

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

The Passion

Sexing the Cherry

Written on the Body

Art and Lies

Gut Symmetries

The World and Other Places
(short stories)

The PowerBook

ESSAYS

Art Objects

CHILDREN’S FICTION

The King of Capri

COMIC BOOK

Boating for Beginners

Copyright

Harper Perennial
An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith
London W6 8JB

www.harperperennial.co.uk

This edition published by Harper Perennial 2005
FOURTH EDITION

First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate 2004

Copyright © Jeanette Winterson 2004
PS section © Louise Tucker 2005,
except ‘Endless Possibilities’ by Jeanette Winterson © Jeanette Winterson 2005

PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollins
Publishers
Ltd

Jeanette Winterson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work
of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © JUNE 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-39550-7

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

About the Publisher

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United Kingdom
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http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

United States
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