The Rise and Fall of Great Powers

Tom Rachman

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Paperback

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English

Text Publishing Company
28 May 2014

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers will consolidate Rachman's reputation as one of the most assured and exciting young writers alive.

As Tooly strolled back downtown, she glanced at other buildings. No matter how she imagined their insides - parties veering out of control, kitchens with faucets running, angry couples playing cards for real money - the truth was always more peculiar. In a vertical city, cramped dwellings were the only territory unreservedly reserved, each home an intimate fortress. Yet they were so easy to penetrate. ('Don't want to intrude, but I used to live here. Might it be possible to take a quick look? I happened to be passing and - wow, even just standing here, so many memories!') Mostly, one needed only knock, say a few lines, enter. Why limit yourself to the outside when you could walk right in, peek at their lives - maybe even leave with a handy nugget.

Who is Tooly Zylberberg? How did she end up running a second-hand bookstore in Wales? The Russian emigre Humphrey teaches her to play chess, but how does he fit in? Or Sarah who turns up without warning and then disappears again? And what about Venn, the shadowy and charismatic figure who seems to be one step ahead of everybody?

Spanning three decades, and taking us from Bangkok to Brooklyn to the border towns of Wales, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is a story about how mystifying the past can be, and how the lives we lead can seem indecipherable even to us. It's a story about unexpected connections and the revelations that change everything.

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers will consolidate Rachman's reputation as one of the most assured and exciting young writers alive.

By: Tom Rachman
Imprint: Text Publishing Company
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 29mm
Weight: 537g
ISBN: 9781922147875
ISBN 10: 1922147877
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 28 May 2014
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Tom Rachman was born in 1974 in London, and grew up in Vancouver. He has worked as an editor at the foreign desk of The Associated Press in New York, as an AP correspondent in Rome and as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. Rachman now lives in London. His first novel, The Imperfectionists, was longlisted for the The Giller Prize. tomrachman.com

Reviews for The Rise and Fall of Great Powers

'This mysterious story, beautifully composed and lyrical, is anchored by its deeply etched, oddball characters, floating in and out of Tooly's life, and by a richly detailed sense of time and place. When we return, at the end, to Tooly's musty old bookstore of meagre dreams, it's in this most reassuringly mundane of places that a magical moment may or may not occur, leaving a great big smile on your face either way as you reluctantly close the covers.' New Daily