The International

By Glenn Patterson

Book Overview

Acclaimed Belfast novelist Glenn Patterson's classic novel of a day in the life in that city: a funny, brilliantly observed, bittersweet snapshot of a moment in 1967 just before everything changed. "If I had known history was to be written that Sunday in the International Hotel I might have made an effort to get out of bed before teatime." So begins The International . Danny Hamilton takes us back over three troubled decades to one wonderfully ordinary Saturday, in January 1967, when his 18-year-old self had no idea -- most people had no idea -- that ordinary days in Belfast would soon become tragically rare. Ordinary, but packed with extraordinarily observed characters; and extraordinary enough for Danny to fall in love twice (and think about sex a few more times than that). Ordinary, but when someone calls out "Be careful" in parting, no one takes it lightly and for good reason. First published in the UK in 1999, and reissued by Blackstaff in 2008, The International is a timeless novel: funny, bawdy, deftly crafted, and heartwrenchingly humane. Featuring an essay "On Reading The International " by Man Booker-Prize winner Anne Enright

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0771071116
• ISBN13: 9780771071119
• Release Date: February 2011
• Publisher: Emblem Editions
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

His best book: delicate but forthright

If Burning Your Own presented the aftermath of the time--a few years earlier--described in The International (which was a real hotel in Belfast)--this novel takes a less frantic approach to revealing the city's soul. Fat Lad tries more obviously to capture the unpredicatability; Number 5, his most recent work, offers a more mature, steadily microcosmic view over the past half-century. Here, in a story based loosely on Peter Ward, in 1966 reckoned the second victim of "the troubles," Patterson limns the sectarian divide and also, more to the point/pint, Belfast's shared joys and sorrows. Sounds predictable and perhaps cliched, yes, but read this, and see how Patterson transcends predictablity. He may not have garnered the attention of Robert MacLiam Wilson with his boisterous louts Ripley Bogle and those from Eureka Street, but Patterson may prove better equipped with the stamina to outlast his brasher competitors Colin Bateman and MacL-W, as his narrative foregoes glitz or shenanigans for a a deeper psychological resonance.