The Man Without

by Ray Robinson

Overview

Antony Dobson has lived through a lot in his short twenty-six years. Desperate, loveable and utterly confused, he gets a kick out of taking risks, gets a thrill from taking himself right to the edge and, so far at least, back again. But haunted by childhood memories and guarding a dark, humiliating secret that he dare not reveal, he's hurtling fast towards the point of no return. Impressive and irresistibly readable, this tight-rope-walk of a novel explores memory, love, identity, and absence in a dazzling display that is in turn sad, witty and deeply affecting.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940149830206
Publisher:	Ray Robinson
Publication date:	07/22/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	330
Sales rank:	1,052,539
File size:	293 KB

About the Author

An award-winning short story writer, novelist and screenwriter, Robinson first won attention in 2006 with his debut novel, Electricity (Picador, 2006). It was shortlisted for both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Authors' Club First Novel Award. The film adaptation of Electricity, starring Agyness Deyn as Lily, will be released in 2014.
Robinson's other novels are The Man Without (Picador, 2008), Forgetting Zoe (Heinemann, 2010), and Jawbone Lake (Heinemann, 2014).
Forgetting Zoe was selected for the inaugural Fiction Uncovered promotion and was the Observer's 'Thriller of the Month'. Robinson was hailed as 'among the most impressive voices of Britain's younger generation' by the Irish Times.
Robinson is a post-graduate of Lancaster University, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in Creative Writing in 2006, and is a Literary Mentor and Reader for The Literary Consultancy.
He has appeared at literary festivals around the world, including La Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara, Mexico, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Editorial Reviews

Robinson confronts us with lives blighted by tortured childhoods, but never drifts into the pornography of suffering. His characters may initially believe the key to their adult difficulties lies in the bits they can't quite remember, but by relating The Man Without to his first novel Robinson demonstrates the non-existence of single truths. His witnesses don't speak with the authority of a misery memoirist. They are unreliable because they were children, with children's limited understanding...

Guardian - Louise Welsh

"Robinson's second novel explores the dark sexual fantasies of Anthony Dobson, a patient at a mental health centre, who battles troublesome childhood memories. Combines beautifully assembled prose with a sharp insight into a very real subject. A disturbing, but worthwhile read."

The Gay Times - Gay Times

"Antony works at a centre for "the afflicted, the mentally challenged...the disfigured, the partially destroyed". His own mental state, however, is in turmoil. His distress comes out in bouts of cross-dressing and auto-erotic asphyxiation. He gets turned on by flirting with death, to kill the pain of longing - for what, he's not entirely sure. One of his patients is a foul-mouthed former Unitarian minister with severe amnesia, and Antony almost envies him. Robinson pitches the reader straight...

The Times