Shadowplay

by Joseph O'Connor Narrated by Anna Chancellor, Barry McGovern

Overview

When Henry Irving decides to open the Lyceum, his own London theater, with the goal of making it the greatest playhouse on earth, he hires a young Dublin clerk harboring literary ambitions by the name of Abraham Stoker as his assistant. Together, Irving and Stoker fall under the spell of Ellen Terry, a dazzlingly talented Shakespearean actress, known to all as a proto-feminist, and the lives of all three become intertwined with the Lyceum and each other. Set in the late-Victorian world of the London theater, Shadowplay tells the story of these extraordinary artists: the first superstar thespian-a showman extraordinaire whose impact on popular entertainment invites comparisons to PT Barnum-the era's greatest Shakespearian actor, and the young man who would go on to write the most iconic and bestselling horror novel of all time.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Miranda Seymour

…a vibrantly imaginative narrative of passion, intrigue and literary ambition…Artfully splicing truth with fantasy, O'Connor has a glorious time turning a ramshackle and haunted London playhouse into a primary source for Stoker's Gothic imaginings…Throughout this vivid re-creation of one of the most fascinating and neglected episodes in the enticingly murky history of the Gothic novel, the storyteller keeps his reader deliciously in the dark.

From the Publisher

I am a huge fan [of Shadowplay]. […] It’s rich, dense and beautifully written.”—Brendan Coyle, star of Downton Abbey, in The Chicago Tribune

★ “An affectionate, tender story about everyday heroism, secret selves, and triumphs and tragedies on stage and in life and the many kinds of love that bind us together.”—Library Journal (Starred Review)

★ “O’Connor’s characters are magnificently realized...This novel blows the dust off its Victorian trappings and brings them to scintillating life.”—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“Effervescent...Shadowplay is far more than a frothy entertainment. Subtly drawn and intensely affecting, this portrayal of accidental friendship, enduring love, frustrated ambition and, dare we say it, the alchemy of acting, recalls, in its effortless grace, those 19th-century novels that made readers of us all.”—The Wall Street Journal

“A vibrantly imaginative narrative of passion, intrigue and literary ambition.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A marvelous novel...Magnificent.”—Suzie Feay, Financial Times

“Joseph O’Connor’s graceful, insightful writing is immediately apparent...O’Connor’s engrossing story is wonderfully well served by the superb narration.”—BookTrib

“A thoughtful exploration of the tangled nature of desire and commitment.”—Kirkus Reviews

“There are few living writers who can take us back in time so assuredly, with such sensual density, through such gorgeous sentences. Joseph O’Connor is a wonder, and Shadowplay is a triumph.”—Peter Carey, author of Parrot and Olivier in America

“Shadowplay is an absolutely magnificent book. It’s not just a portrait of Bram Stoker, but a novel of the here and now. This is one of the best books of the year, anywhere.”—Colum McCann, Irish Independent, Books of the Year

“Resurrecting Victorian theatre in all its gaudy wizardry […] O’Connor’s panache and subtlety wonderfully match the gusto and creative finesse of the High Victorian world he dazzlingly evokes.”—The Sunday Times, a 2019 Best Novel of the Year

“Briskly paced, a plot elegantly clockworked, full of razor sharp insights on what it means just to be human, atmosphere spilling off the pages like early morning fog and full of gorgeous sentences that pulled me up short.”—Rick O’Shea, RTÉ, Best Books of 2019

“As much as this is a hugely entertaining book about the grand scope of friendship and love, it is also, movingly—at times, agonizingly—a story of transience, loss and true loyalty.”—Sadie Jones, The Guardian

“An ingenious novel . . . O’Connor’s work is hugely impressive and utterly haunting.”—The Sunday Mirror

“A gorgeous, gorgeous book . . . A thing of great beauty.”—Ryan Tubridy, RTÉ Radio

“A mesmerizing read, beautifully researched.”—Sunday Independent

“Shadowplay totally swept me away . . . It’s a bit like Moulin Rouge meets Dracula. I absolutely loved it.”—Oliver Callan, Irish Examiner

“Intensely atmospheric . . . As a romp through Ripper-ravaged London, Shadowplay is mightily entertaining. But as a meditation on hidden sexuality, it is powerful and poignant.”—The Literary Review

“O’Connor is one of the best writers working today.”—Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

“Shadowplay is wonderful. The writing is beautiful.”—Tony Award-winning actor, Derek Jacobi

“Seriously fascinating [. . .] Shadowplay displays a brilliant ear for tone and nuance, and a wonderful talent for evoking and creating drama.”—Colm Toibin, author of Brooklyn

“Joseph O’Connor is a very great artist and storyteller. The quotient of enjoyment in his extraordinary new novel is stupendous.”—Sebastian Barry, author of The Secret Scripture

“A great writer performing Olympian literary storytelling.”—Bob Geldof

“A thrilling novel, exquisitely contrived to show the characters whose loves and lives inspired Dracula. A great tribute, and a work of art. Deeply affecting.”—Essie Fox, author of The Somnambulist

“Atmospheric and evocative . . . [O’Connor] also manages to explore with verve, humour and acuity the public role and inner turmoil of the intriguing Bram Stoker.”—Diarmaid Ferriter, The Irish Times, a 2019 Book of the Year

“A glorious romp through Victorian London.”—Liz Nugent, The Irish Times

“O’Connor inhabits his characters with all the intensity of a method actor, re-creating an extraordinary world of creativity and self-doubt.”—John Boyne, The Irish Times

“A witty, wry, astute and tender delight.”—Martin Doyle, The Irish Times, Books of the Year 2019

“A sparkling historical novel . . . rich in wit and imagination.”—The Daily Mail

“A hugely entertaining and atmospheric novel, one can almost smell the greasepaint.”—Deborah Moggach, author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

“[With Shadowplay] O’Connor offers a layered, intricately told historical drama.”—The Herald

“In glorious sentences, Joseph O’Connor captures the essence of three very difference artistic temperaments in all their nobility and glorious absurdity.”—Jake Kerridge, Sunday Express

“Ireland’s greatest storyteller.”—The Sunday Independent

“Like Joyce, O’Connor combines his panoramic range with a close eye to the grain and texture of the phrase ... An astonishingly accomplished writer.”—Terry Eagleton, The Guardian

“A book-within-a-book of the highest caliber, it treads the boards from the dazzling spectacle of Shakespeare to the quiet desperation of everyday life. It's also occasionally, as befits a story of Dracula’s creator, creepingly spooky... Shadowplay made me laugh, weep, and most importantly, begat a sense of intimately knowing its real-life muses: Abraham Stoker, Ellen Terry, and and Henry Irving.”—Amanda Qassar, Warwick’s, La Jolla, CA

“Well, this was just magnificent. I could read this book on a loop. Bram Stoker, theatre and actors, ghosts, and such vivid language, the perfect heady mix for a perfect historical novel.”—Anton Bogomazov, Politics & Prose, Washington, DC

“If Joseph O’Connor was inspired by the theory that Bram Stoker based Dracula on his boss Henry Irving, then it’s a delightful surprise that SHADOWPLAY became something even richer and stranger. Filled with eye-popping set pieces (Irving leaping into the audience as a rabid Hamlet, a bonkers cameo by black-teethed Oscar Wilde) and absurdly delicious dialogue, SHADOWPLAY succeeds far beyond its original premise. It plays perfectly to the cheap seats and boxes, raising from Stoker’s frustrated life a host of themes: literary ambition, gothic horror, gender fluidity, Irishness, and the always-more-interesting drama occurring backstage.”—Steve Iwanski, Charter Books, Rhode Island

“A wonderful read filled with one-line quips that are priceless. Interesting history for those of us who are unfamiliar with Victorian theater as well as a superbly written novel.”—Laura Parsons, Island Bound Bookstore, Block Island, RI

“Shadowplay is an accomplished, compelling read.”—The Herald

“Joseph O’Connor: What a writer!”—from Twitter, Sunday Times books editor, Andrew Holgate

“An absorbing tale.”—Historical Novels Review

“In description, Shadowplay sounds like it’s all about plot, but, in reality, it’s all about the sentences so lush you could wrap them around you like a cloak.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

Kirkus Reviews

2020-03-02
Better known as the author of Dracula, Bram Stoker in his day job as general manager of London’s Lyceum Theatre is the focus of Irish writer O’Connor’s atmospheric new novel.

Mind you, there are plenty of nods to his famous horror story, from a ghost in the theater’s attic named Mina to a scene-painter named Jonathan Harker, plus the fact that the dreaded vampire bears a more than passing resemblance to Stoker’s mercurial boss, legendary actor Henry Irving. Harker turns out to be a woman, a twist that suits the seething homoerotic currents between Stoker and Irving, who can also be found entwined in the naked arms of co-star Ellen Terry. Terry’s voice as recorded in 1906—funny, bitchy, extremely shrewd about her acting partner’s gifts and limitations—offers a welcome counterpoint to the sometimes overly dense third-person narrative of Stoker’s tenure at the Lyceum and on tour in the late 1870s and '80s, grappling with Irving’s neuroses while striving to snatch some time for his own writing. This is a tougher, colder work than Ghost Light (2011), O’Connor’s previous fictional excursion into theatrical lives, and that novel’s portrait of actor Molly Allgood’s love affair with playwright John Synge was gentler than this one of Stoker’s thorny relationship with Irving, a toxic blend of need, rage, resentment, and profound love. Still, the men’s bond is as moving and more unsettling, proof that, as Stoker later tells Harker, “Love is not a matter of who puts what where but of wanting only goodness and respectful kindliness for the loved one.” Irving seems less deserving of such kindness than Stoker’s assertive wife, Flo, who makes sure he gets copyright protection for the vampire story his boss cruelly dismisses as “filth and tedious rubbish from first to last.” Flo’s tender letter to Terry after Stoker’s death closes the novel, with another affirmation that “There are many kinds of love. I know that. He did, too.”

An uneven mix of Dracula and theater lore but a thoughtful exploration of the tangled nature of desire and commitment.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177075501
Publisher:	Dreamscape Media
Publication date:	06/16/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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