May 2010 Book of the Month.
Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 22 April 2010.
The structure here is interesting. It begins in London in 1981 with Georgy and his wife Zoya. She is dying. Chapter two takes us to Russia in 1915 and Georgy’s young life. So, in alternating chapters, the contemporary story moves back and the historical one forward until they meet in 1918. The historical episodes centre on the Romanovs to whom Georgy was a bodyguard. After their deaths Georgy and Zoya flee and seem to spend their lives in fear, we know not from what. When it is revealed I certainly didn’t see it coming …. Brilliant. A lovely book, highly recommended.
Comparison: Sebastian Faulks, Tom Rob Smith, Kate Furnivall.
John Boyne introduces THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE...
"My previous two novels were narrated by children – a 9 year old and 14 year old respectively – so when I began THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE I knew that I wanted a break from this and so I began chapter one with the voice of an 82 year old Russian emigre in London, a man for whom English is not his first language and who therefore speaks in a rather formal and elegant style.
The novel takes place over more than sixty years, following the journey of Georgy, a young peasant from his wood-framed hut in the farmlands of Russia to the Winter Palace of Tsar Nicholas II, where he becomes a bodyguard-companion to the Tsarevich Alexei and onwards to Paris and London between 1920 and 1980, as Georgy and his wife Zoya leave behind the dramatic events of the Russian Revolution but are never fully able forget them.
I’d never written a love story before and at its heart, that’s what this novel is. Georgy and Zoya are a couple who have been through many traumas together but their affection and loyalty to each other marks their relationship and maintains the strength at its core."
| Primary Genre | Historical Fiction |
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Russia, 1915: Sixteen year old farmer's son Georgy Jachmenev steps in front of an assassin's bullet intended for a senior member of the Russian Imperial Family and is instantly proclaimed a hero. Rewarded with the position of bodyguard to Alexei Romanov, the only son of Tsar Nicholas II, the course of his life is changed for ever. Privy to the secrets of Nicholas and Alexandra, the machinations of Rasputin and the events which will lead to the final collapse of the autocracy, Georgy is both a witness and participant in a drama that will echo down the century. Sixty-five years later, visiting his wife Zoya as she lies in a London hospital, memories of the life they have lived together flood his mind. And with them, the consequences of the brutal fate of the Romanovs which has hung like a shroud over every aspect of their marriage...
The House of Special Purpose features in the following genres: Historical Fiction, Books of the Month, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Book Club Recommendations, eBooks of the Month, Fiction, Recommendations, General Fiction
The House of Special Purpose is available in Paperback
The House of Special Purpose was written by John Boyne and published by Black Swan an imprint of Transworld Publishers Ltd
The House of Special Purpose has 493 pages
£9.89
