The darkness of Wallis Simpson and other stories
By: Rose Tremain
Edition: Large print ed.
Publisher: Chivers
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Bath
Language: eng
Number of pages: 232
ISBN-13: 9781405641647; 9781405641654
Subjects: Fiction; Memory; Large type books
Description: Wallis Simpson, the twice-divorced American woman for whom Edward VIII abdicated in 1936, ended her life as the prisoner of her lawyer who would not allow anyone - friend, foe or journalist - to visit her in her Paris flat. Rose Tremain takes this true-life account and transforms it into fiction: a tale of a dying, embittered woman who has forgotten the love of the king who gave up an empire for her. The other stories in this collection range over a variety of themes: an East German border guard, redundant after the Berlin Wall comes down in 1989, imagines that he might still have a purpose in life. He tries to reach Russia by bicycling across the hostile wastes of Poland. A jilted man gets his revenge. A baby grows wings. A character in an Impressionist painting escapes from his "frame"--Or does he? And there's a Christmas story set in a seedy hotel.
Notes: Originally published: London: Chatto & Windus, 2005.
Table of contents: title: The darkness of Wallis Simpson; title: How it stacks up; title: The beauty of the dawn shift; title: Death of an advocate; title: Nativity story; title: The over-ride; title: The ebony hand; title: Loves me, loves me not; title: Moth; title: The Cherry Orchard, with rugs; title: The dead are only sleeping; title: Peerless.