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Mothering Sunday

A Romance

Part of Vintage International

Author Graham Swift
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$15.00 US
Knopf | Vintage
On sale Jan 10, 2017 | 192 Pages | 978-1-101-97172-7
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  • English > Comparative Literature > 21st Century Film and Literature
  • English > Literature > British Literature – 21st Century
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On an unseasonably warm spring day in 1924, twenty-two-year-old Jane Fairchild, a maid at an English country house, meets with her secret lover, the young heir of a neighboring estate. He is about to be married to a woman more befitting his social status, and the time has come to end the affair—but events unfold in ways Jane could never have predicted. 
 
As the narrative moves back and forth across the twentieth century, what we know and understand about Jane—about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees, and remembers—expands with every page. In Mothering Sunday, Booker Prize-winning novelist Graham Swift has crafted an emotionally soaring and profoundly moving work of fiction.

“Haunting.” —The New York Times

“Exquisite. . . Mothering Sunday shows love, lust, and ordinary decency struggling against the bars of an unjust English caste system.” —Kazuo Ishiguro, TheGuardian

“A book you’ll want to read more than once—and then urge on your friends.” —NPR
 
“An exquisite, emotionally resonant romance.” —Entertainment Weekly
 
“A fairy tale of sexual and intellectual awakening.” —The New Yorker
ONCE UPON A TIME, before the boys were killed and when there were more horses than cars, before the male servants disappeared and they made do, at Upleigh and at Beechwood, with just a cook and a maid, the Sheringhams had owned not just four horses in their own stable, but what might be called a “real horse,” a racehorse, a thoroughbred. Its name was Fandango. It was stabled near Newbury. It had never won a damn thing. But it was the family’s indulgence, their hope for fame and glory on the racecourses of southern England. The deal was that Ma and Pa—otherwise known in his strange language as “the shower”—owned the head and body and he and Dick and Freddy had a leg each.
 
“What about the fourth leg?”
 
“Oh the fourth leg. That was always the question.”
 
For most of the time it was just a name, never seen, though an expensively quartered and trained name. It had been sold in 1915—when he’d been fifteen too. “Before you showed up, Jay.” But once, long ago, early one June morning, they’d all gone, for the strange, mad expedition of it, just to watch it, just to watch Fandango, their horse, being galloped over the downs. Just to stand at the rail and watch it, with other horses, thundering towards them, then flashing past. He and Ma and Pa and Dick and Freddy. And—who knows?—some other ghostly interested party who really owned the fourth leg.
 
He had a hand on her leg.
 
It was the only time she’d known his eyes go anything close to misty. And she’d had the clear sharp vision (she would have it still when she was ninety) that she might have gone with him—might still somehow miraculously go with him, just him—to stand at the rail and watch Fandango hurtle past, kicking up the mud and dew. She had never seen such a thing but she could imagine it, imagine it clearly. The sun still coming up, a red disc, over the grey downs, the air still crisp and cold, while he shared with her, perhaps, a silver-capped hip flask and, not especially stealthily, clawed her arse.
 
—
 
BUT SHE WATCHED him now move, naked but for a silver signet ring, across the sunlit room. She would not later in life use with any readiness, if at all, the word “stallion” for a man. But such he was. He was twenty-three and she was twenty-two. And he was even what you might call a thoroughbred, though she did not have that word then, any more than she had the word “stallion.” She did not yet have a million words. Thoroughbred: since it was “breeding” and “birth” that counted with his kind. Never mind to what actual purpose.
 
It was March 1924. It wasn’t June, but it was a day like June. And it must have been a little after noon. A window was flung open, and he walked, unclad, across the sun-filled room as carelessly as any unclad animal. It was his room, wasn’t it? He could do what he liked in it. He clearly could. And she had never been in it before, and never would be again.
 
And she was naked too.
 
March 30th 1924. Once upon a time. The shadows from the latticework in the window slipped over him like foliage. Having gathered up the cigarette case and lighter and a little silver ashtray from the dressing table, he turned, and there, beneath a nest of dark hair and fully bathed by sunshine, were his cock and balls, mere floppy and still sticky appendages. She could look at them if she liked, he didn’t mind.
 
But then he could look at her. She was stretched out naked, except for a pair—her only pair—of very cheap earrings. She hadn’t pulled up the sheet. She had even clasped her hands behind her head the better to look at him. But he could look at her. Feast your eyes. It was an expression that came to her. Expressions had started to come to her. Feast your eyes.
 
Outside, all Berkshire stretched out too, girded with bright greenery, loud with birdsong, blessed in March with a day in June.
 
He was still a follower of horses. That is, he still threw money away on them. It was his version of economising, to throw money away. For nearly eight years he’d had money for three, in theory. He called it “loot.” But he would show he could do without it. And what the two of them had been doing for almost seven years cost, as he would sometimes remind her, absolutely nothing. Except secrecy and risk and cunning and a mutual aptitude for being good at it.
 
But they had never done anything like this. She had never been in this bed before—it was a single bed, but roomy. Or in this room, or in this house. If it cost nothing, then this was the greatest of gifts.
 
Though if it cost nothing, she might always remind him, then what about the times when he’d given her sixpences? Or was it even threepences? When it was only just beginning, before it got—was it the right word?—serious. But she would never dare remind him. And not now anyway. Or dare throw at him the word “serious.”
 
He sat on the bed beside her. He ran a hand across her belly as if brushing away invisible dust. Then he arranged on it the lighter and ashtray, retaining the cigarette case. He took two cigarettes from the case, putting one in her own proffered, pouting lips. She had not taken her hands from the back of her head. He lit hers, then his. Then, gathering up the case and lighter to put on the bedside table, he stretched out beside her, the ashtray still positioned halfway between her navel and what these days he would happily, making no bones about it, call her “cunt.”
 
Cock, balls, cunt. There were some simple, basic expressions.
 
It was March 30th. It was a Sunday. It was what used to be known as Mothering Sunday.
 
—
 
“WELL, you have a gorgeous day for it, Jane,” Mr. Niven had said as she brought in fresh coffee and toast.
 
“Yes, sir,” she’d said and she’d wondered quite what he meant by “it” in her case.
 
“A truly gorgeous day.” As if it were something he had generously provided. And then to Mrs. Niven, “You know, if someone had told us it was going to be like this, we might as well have all packed hampers. A picnic—by the river.”
 
He said it wistfully, yet eagerly, so that, putting down the toast rack, she’d thought for an instant there might actually be a change of plan and she and Milly would be required to pack a hamper. Wherever the hamper was, and whatever they were supposed to put in it at such inconsiderate notice. This being their day.
 
And then Mrs. Niven had said, “It’s March, Godfrey,” with a distrusting glance towards the window.
 
Well, she’d been wrong. The day had only got better.
 
And anyway the Nivens had their plan, on which the weather could only smile. They were to drive to Henley to meet the Hobdays and the Sheringhams. Given their common predicament—which only occurred once a year and only for a portion of one day—they were all to meet for lunch at Henley and so deal with the temporary bother of having no servants.
 
It was the Hobdays’ idea—or invitation. Paul Sheringham was to marry Emma Hobday in just two weeks’ time. So the Hobdays had suggested to the Sheringhams an outing for lunch: an opportunity to toast and talk over the forthcoming event, as well as a solution to Sunday’s practical difficulty. And then because the Nivens were close friends and neighbours of the Sheringhams and would be honoured guests at the wedding (and would have the same difficulty), the Nivens—as Mr. Niven had put it to her when first notifying her of these arrangements—had been “roped in.”
 
This had all made clear one thing she knew already. Whatever else Paul Sheringham was marrying, he was marrying money. Perhaps he had to, the way he got through his own. The Hobdays would be paying in two weeks’ time for a grand wedding, and did you really need to celebrate a forthcoming celebration? Not unless you had plenty to spare. It might demand nothing less than champagne. When Mr. Niven had mentioned the hamper he had perhaps been wondering how much the Hobdays’ liberality could be relied on or how much the day might involve his own pocket.
 
But that the Hobdays had plenty to spare pleased her. It had nothing to do with her, but it pleased her. That Emma Hobday might be made of five-pound notes, that the marriage might be an elaborate way of obtaining “loot,” pleased or, rather, consoled her. It was all the other things it might entail that—even as Mr. Niven explained about the “roping in”—gnawed at her.
 
And would Mister Paul and Miss Hobday be joining the party themselves? She couldn’t really ask it directly, vital as it was to her to know. And Mr. Niven didn’t volunteer the information.
 
“Would you mention these arrangements to Milly? None of it of course need affect—your own arrangements.”
 
It was not often that he had the occasion to say such a thing.
 
“Of course, sir.”
 
“A jamboree in Henley, Jane. A meeting of the tribes. Let’s hope we have the weather for it.”
 
She wasn’t quite sure what “jamboree” meant, though she felt she had read the word somewhere. But “jam” suggested something jolly.
 
“I hope so too, sir.”
 
—
 
AND NOW they clearly had the weather for it, and Mr. Niven, whatever his earlier misgivings, was indeed getting rather jolly. He was going to be driving himself. He had already announced that they might as well set off soon, so they could “pootle around” and take advantage of such a lovely morning. He wouldn’t, apparently, be calling on Alf at the garage, who—for the right sum—could become a convincing chauffeur. In any case, as she’d observed over recent years, Mr. Niven liked driving. He even preferred the pleasure of driving to the dignity of being driven. It gave him a boyish zest. And as he was always saying, with a whole variety of intonations, ranging from bluster to lament, times were changing.
 
Once upon a time, after all, the Nivens would have met the Sheringhams at Sunday service.
 
“Tribes” had suggested something hot and outdoors. She knew it was to be the George Hotel in Henley. It was not to be a picnic. And it might well have been a day, since it was still March, of evil gales, even snow. But it was a morning like a morning in summer. And Mrs. Niven left the table to go up to get herself ready.
 
She couldn’t ask, even now with Mr. Niven conveniently alone, “Would Miss Hobday and…?” Even if it sounded like just a maid’s idle curiosity. Wasn’t the coming wedding the only current talking-point? And she certainly couldn’t ask, “If not, then what other separate arrangements might the two of them have in mind?”
 
She didn’t think that if she were one half of a betrothed couple—or at least Paul Sheringham’s half—she would want, two weeks before their wedding, to attend a jamboree in Henley to be fussed over by the older generation (by what he might have called—she could see him speaking with a cigarette in his mouth and wincingly screwing up his eyes—“three bloody showers together”).
 
But in any case, if she got no further information, it still left the problem that was peculiarly hers on this day, as Mr. Niven knew, of what to do with it. Today it was painfully peculiar. The gorgeous weather didn’t necessarily help at all. It only seemed—with two weeks to go—to deepen a shadow.
 
She was going to say to Mr. Niven, when the moment came, that if he—if he and Mrs. Niven—didn’t mind, she might not “go” anywhere. She might just stay here at Beechwood and read a book if that was all right—“her book” as she might put it, though it belonged to Mr. Niven. She might just sit somewhere in the sunshine in the garden.
 
She knew that Mr. Niven could only approve of such a harmless suggestion. He might even think it was a rather appealing image. And of course it would mean she’d be ready to resume her duties at once, whenever they returned. She could find something to eat in the kitchen. Milly, before she left, might even make her a sandwich. She could have her own “picnic.”
 
And it might even have happened just like that. The bench in the nook by the sundial. Bumblebees tricked by the weather. The magnolia tree already loaded with blossom. Her book on her lap. She knew which book it would be.
 
So—she would put the idea to Mr. Niven.
 
But then the telephone had rung and—it being one of her numberless duties—she’d hastened to answer it. And her heart had soared. That was a phrase you read in books, but it was sometimes actually true of what happened to people. It was true then of herself. Her heart had soared, like some stranded heroine’s in a story. Like the larks she would hear in a little while, trilling and soaring high in the blue sky, as she pedalled her way to Upleigh.
 
But she’d been careful to say, quite loudly, into the receiver and with her best answering-the-telephone voice that was both maid-like and somewhat queenly, “Yes, madam.”
Copyright © 2017 by Graham Swift. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
© Janus van den Eijnden
Graham Swift was born in 1949 and is the author of eleven novels; two collections of short stories; and Making an Elephant, a book of essays, portraits, poetry and reflections on his life in writing. With Waterland he won The Guardian Fiction Award, and with Last Orders the Booker Prize. Both novels have since been made into films. His work has appeared in more than thirty languages. View titles by Graham Swift

About

On an unseasonably warm spring day in 1924, twenty-two-year-old Jane Fairchild, a maid at an English country house, meets with her secret lover, the young heir of a neighboring estate. He is about to be married to a woman more befitting his social status, and the time has come to end the affair—but events unfold in ways Jane could never have predicted. 
 
As the narrative moves back and forth across the twentieth century, what we know and understand about Jane—about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees, and remembers—expands with every page. In Mothering Sunday, Booker Prize-winning novelist Graham Swift has crafted an emotionally soaring and profoundly moving work of fiction.

“Haunting.” —The New York Times

“Exquisite. . . Mothering Sunday shows love, lust, and ordinary decency struggling against the bars of an unjust English caste system.” —Kazuo Ishiguro, TheGuardian

“A book you’ll want to read more than once—and then urge on your friends.” —NPR
 
“An exquisite, emotionally resonant romance.” —Entertainment Weekly
 
“A fairy tale of sexual and intellectual awakening.” —The New Yorker

Excerpt

ONCE UPON A TIME, before the boys were killed and when there were more horses than cars, before the male servants disappeared and they made do, at Upleigh and at Beechwood, with just a cook and a maid, the Sheringhams had owned not just four horses in their own stable, but what might be called a “real horse,” a racehorse, a thoroughbred. Its name was Fandango. It was stabled near Newbury. It had never won a damn thing. But it was the family’s indulgence, their hope for fame and glory on the racecourses of southern England. The deal was that Ma and Pa—otherwise known in his strange language as “the shower”—owned the head and body and he and Dick and Freddy had a leg each.
 
“What about the fourth leg?”
 
“Oh the fourth leg. That was always the question.”
 
For most of the time it was just a name, never seen, though an expensively quartered and trained name. It had been sold in 1915—when he’d been fifteen too. “Before you showed up, Jay.” But once, long ago, early one June morning, they’d all gone, for the strange, mad expedition of it, just to watch it, just to watch Fandango, their horse, being galloped over the downs. Just to stand at the rail and watch it, with other horses, thundering towards them, then flashing past. He and Ma and Pa and Dick and Freddy. And—who knows?—some other ghostly interested party who really owned the fourth leg.
 
He had a hand on her leg.
 
It was the only time she’d known his eyes go anything close to misty. And she’d had the clear sharp vision (she would have it still when she was ninety) that she might have gone with him—might still somehow miraculously go with him, just him—to stand at the rail and watch Fandango hurtle past, kicking up the mud and dew. She had never seen such a thing but she could imagine it, imagine it clearly. The sun still coming up, a red disc, over the grey downs, the air still crisp and cold, while he shared with her, perhaps, a silver-capped hip flask and, not especially stealthily, clawed her arse.
 
—
 
BUT SHE WATCHED him now move, naked but for a silver signet ring, across the sunlit room. She would not later in life use with any readiness, if at all, the word “stallion” for a man. But such he was. He was twenty-three and she was twenty-two. And he was even what you might call a thoroughbred, though she did not have that word then, any more than she had the word “stallion.” She did not yet have a million words. Thoroughbred: since it was “breeding” and “birth” that counted with his kind. Never mind to what actual purpose.
 
It was March 1924. It wasn’t June, but it was a day like June. And it must have been a little after noon. A window was flung open, and he walked, unclad, across the sun-filled room as carelessly as any unclad animal. It was his room, wasn’t it? He could do what he liked in it. He clearly could. And she had never been in it before, and never would be again.
 
And she was naked too.
 
March 30th 1924. Once upon a time. The shadows from the latticework in the window slipped over him like foliage. Having gathered up the cigarette case and lighter and a little silver ashtray from the dressing table, he turned, and there, beneath a nest of dark hair and fully bathed by sunshine, were his cock and balls, mere floppy and still sticky appendages. She could look at them if she liked, he didn’t mind.
 
But then he could look at her. She was stretched out naked, except for a pair—her only pair—of very cheap earrings. She hadn’t pulled up the sheet. She had even clasped her hands behind her head the better to look at him. But he could look at her. Feast your eyes. It was an expression that came to her. Expressions had started to come to her. Feast your eyes.
 
Outside, all Berkshire stretched out too, girded with bright greenery, loud with birdsong, blessed in March with a day in June.
 
He was still a follower of horses. That is, he still threw money away on them. It was his version of economising, to throw money away. For nearly eight years he’d had money for three, in theory. He called it “loot.” But he would show he could do without it. And what the two of them had been doing for almost seven years cost, as he would sometimes remind her, absolutely nothing. Except secrecy and risk and cunning and a mutual aptitude for being good at it.
 
But they had never done anything like this. She had never been in this bed before—it was a single bed, but roomy. Or in this room, or in this house. If it cost nothing, then this was the greatest of gifts.
 
Though if it cost nothing, she might always remind him, then what about the times when he’d given her sixpences? Or was it even threepences? When it was only just beginning, before it got—was it the right word?—serious. But she would never dare remind him. And not now anyway. Or dare throw at him the word “serious.”
 
He sat on the bed beside her. He ran a hand across her belly as if brushing away invisible dust. Then he arranged on it the lighter and ashtray, retaining the cigarette case. He took two cigarettes from the case, putting one in her own proffered, pouting lips. She had not taken her hands from the back of her head. He lit hers, then his. Then, gathering up the case and lighter to put on the bedside table, he stretched out beside her, the ashtray still positioned halfway between her navel and what these days he would happily, making no bones about it, call her “cunt.”
 
Cock, balls, cunt. There were some simple, basic expressions.
 
It was March 30th. It was a Sunday. It was what used to be known as Mothering Sunday.
 
—
 
“WELL, you have a gorgeous day for it, Jane,” Mr. Niven had said as she brought in fresh coffee and toast.
 
“Yes, sir,” she’d said and she’d wondered quite what he meant by “it” in her case.
 
“A truly gorgeous day.” As if it were something he had generously provided. And then to Mrs. Niven, “You know, if someone had told us it was going to be like this, we might as well have all packed hampers. A picnic—by the river.”
 
He said it wistfully, yet eagerly, so that, putting down the toast rack, she’d thought for an instant there might actually be a change of plan and she and Milly would be required to pack a hamper. Wherever the hamper was, and whatever they were supposed to put in it at such inconsiderate notice. This being their day.
 
And then Mrs. Niven had said, “It’s March, Godfrey,” with a distrusting glance towards the window.
 
Well, she’d been wrong. The day had only got better.
 
And anyway the Nivens had their plan, on which the weather could only smile. They were to drive to Henley to meet the Hobdays and the Sheringhams. Given their common predicament—which only occurred once a year and only for a portion of one day—they were all to meet for lunch at Henley and so deal with the temporary bother of having no servants.
 
It was the Hobdays’ idea—or invitation. Paul Sheringham was to marry Emma Hobday in just two weeks’ time. So the Hobdays had suggested to the Sheringhams an outing for lunch: an opportunity to toast and talk over the forthcoming event, as well as a solution to Sunday’s practical difficulty. And then because the Nivens were close friends and neighbours of the Sheringhams and would be honoured guests at the wedding (and would have the same difficulty), the Nivens—as Mr. Niven had put it to her when first notifying her of these arrangements—had been “roped in.”
 
This had all made clear one thing she knew already. Whatever else Paul Sheringham was marrying, he was marrying money. Perhaps he had to, the way he got through his own. The Hobdays would be paying in two weeks’ time for a grand wedding, and did you really need to celebrate a forthcoming celebration? Not unless you had plenty to spare. It might demand nothing less than champagne. When Mr. Niven had mentioned the hamper he had perhaps been wondering how much the Hobdays’ liberality could be relied on or how much the day might involve his own pocket.
 
But that the Hobdays had plenty to spare pleased her. It had nothing to do with her, but it pleased her. That Emma Hobday might be made of five-pound notes, that the marriage might be an elaborate way of obtaining “loot,” pleased or, rather, consoled her. It was all the other things it might entail that—even as Mr. Niven explained about the “roping in”—gnawed at her.
 
And would Mister Paul and Miss Hobday be joining the party themselves? She couldn’t really ask it directly, vital as it was to her to know. And Mr. Niven didn’t volunteer the information.
 
“Would you mention these arrangements to Milly? None of it of course need affect—your own arrangements.”
 
It was not often that he had the occasion to say such a thing.
 
“Of course, sir.”
 
“A jamboree in Henley, Jane. A meeting of the tribes. Let’s hope we have the weather for it.”
 
She wasn’t quite sure what “jamboree” meant, though she felt she had read the word somewhere. But “jam” suggested something jolly.
 
“I hope so too, sir.”
 
—
 
AND NOW they clearly had the weather for it, and Mr. Niven, whatever his earlier misgivings, was indeed getting rather jolly. He was going to be driving himself. He had already announced that they might as well set off soon, so they could “pootle around” and take advantage of such a lovely morning. He wouldn’t, apparently, be calling on Alf at the garage, who—for the right sum—could become a convincing chauffeur. In any case, as she’d observed over recent years, Mr. Niven liked driving. He even preferred the pleasure of driving to the dignity of being driven. It gave him a boyish zest. And as he was always saying, with a whole variety of intonations, ranging from bluster to lament, times were changing.
 
Once upon a time, after all, the Nivens would have met the Sheringhams at Sunday service.
 
“Tribes” had suggested something hot and outdoors. She knew it was to be the George Hotel in Henley. It was not to be a picnic. And it might well have been a day, since it was still March, of evil gales, even snow. But it was a morning like a morning in summer. And Mrs. Niven left the table to go up to get herself ready.
 
She couldn’t ask, even now with Mr. Niven conveniently alone, “Would Miss Hobday and…?” Even if it sounded like just a maid’s idle curiosity. Wasn’t the coming wedding the only current talking-point? And she certainly couldn’t ask, “If not, then what other separate arrangements might the two of them have in mind?”
 
She didn’t think that if she were one half of a betrothed couple—or at least Paul Sheringham’s half—she would want, two weeks before their wedding, to attend a jamboree in Henley to be fussed over by the older generation (by what he might have called—she could see him speaking with a cigarette in his mouth and wincingly screwing up his eyes—“three bloody showers together”).
 
But in any case, if she got no further information, it still left the problem that was peculiarly hers on this day, as Mr. Niven knew, of what to do with it. Today it was painfully peculiar. The gorgeous weather didn’t necessarily help at all. It only seemed—with two weeks to go—to deepen a shadow.
 
She was going to say to Mr. Niven, when the moment came, that if he—if he and Mrs. Niven—didn’t mind, she might not “go” anywhere. She might just stay here at Beechwood and read a book if that was all right—“her book” as she might put it, though it belonged to Mr. Niven. She might just sit somewhere in the sunshine in the garden.
 
She knew that Mr. Niven could only approve of such a harmless suggestion. He might even think it was a rather appealing image. And of course it would mean she’d be ready to resume her duties at once, whenever they returned. She could find something to eat in the kitchen. Milly, before she left, might even make her a sandwich. She could have her own “picnic.”
 
And it might even have happened just like that. The bench in the nook by the sundial. Bumblebees tricked by the weather. The magnolia tree already loaded with blossom. Her book on her lap. She knew which book it would be.
 
So—she would put the idea to Mr. Niven.
 
But then the telephone had rung and—it being one of her numberless duties—she’d hastened to answer it. And her heart had soared. That was a phrase you read in books, but it was sometimes actually true of what happened to people. It was true then of herself. Her heart had soared, like some stranded heroine’s in a story. Like the larks she would hear in a little while, trilling and soaring high in the blue sky, as she pedalled her way to Upleigh.
 
But she’d been careful to say, quite loudly, into the receiver and with her best answering-the-telephone voice that was both maid-like and somewhat queenly, “Yes, madam.”
Copyright © 2017 by Graham Swift. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author

© Janus van den Eijnden
Graham Swift was born in 1949 and is the author of eleven novels; two collections of short stories; and Making an Elephant, a book of essays, portraits, poetry and reflections on his life in writing. With Waterland he won The Guardian Fiction Award, and with Last Orders the Booker Prize. Both novels have since been made into films. His work has appeared in more than thirty languages. View titles by Graham Swift

Additional formats

  • Mothering Sunday
    Mothering Sunday
    A Romance
    Graham Swift
    978-1-101-94753-1
    $10.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Apr 19, 2016
  • Mothering Sunday
    Mothering Sunday
    A Romance
    Graham Swift
    978-1-101-94753-1
    $10.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Apr 19, 2016

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    Vintage
    Nov 07, 2023
  • Soldiers' Pay
    Soldiers' Pay
    William Faulkner
    978-0-593-47096-1
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 15, 2023
  • Mosquitoes
    Mosquitoes
    William Faulkner
    978-0-593-47098-5
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 15, 2023
  • The Singularities
    The Singularities
    A novel
    John Banville
    978-0-525-65517-6
    $30.00 US
    Hardcover
    Knopf
    Oct 25, 2022
  • Medusa's Ankles
    Medusa's Ankles
    Selected Stories
    A. S. Byatt
    978-0-593-46685-8
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 06, 2022
  • Out (Special Edition)
    Out (Special Edition)
    Natsuo Kirino
    978-0-593-31195-0
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
    Aug 09, 2022
  • More Than I Love My Life
    More Than I Love My Life
    A novel
    David Grossman
    978-0-593-31259-9
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 12, 2022
  • The Living Sea of Waking Dreams
    The Living Sea of Waking Dreams
    A novel
    Richard Flanagan
    978-0-593-31370-1
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 26, 2022
  • Trio
    Trio
    A novel
    William Boyd
    978-0-593-31146-2
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 08, 2022
  • Klara and the Sun
    Klara and the Sun
    A novel
    Kazuo Ishiguro
    978-0-593-31129-5
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 01, 2022
  • Antiquities and Other Stories
    Antiquities and Other Stories
    Cynthia Ozick
    978-0-593-31276-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 01, 2022
  • Inside Story
    Inside Story
    A novel
    Martin Amis
    978-0-593-31171-4
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 22, 2022
  • Let Me Tell You What I Mean
    Let Me Tell You What I Mean
    Joan Didion
    978-0-593-31219-3
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 25, 2022
  • Palimpsest
    Palimpsest
    A Memoir
    Gore Vidal
    978-0-593-31439-5
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Nov 16, 2021
  • Season of Anomy
    Season of Anomy
    Wole Soyinka
    978-0-593-46719-0
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 14, 2021
  • The Interpreters
    The Interpreters
    Wole Soyinka
    978-0-593-46721-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 14, 2021
  • Here We Are
    Here We Are
    A novel
    Graham Swift
    978-1-9848-9952-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 10, 2021
  • Juneteenth (Revised)
    Juneteenth (Revised)
    Ralph Ellison
    978-0-593-31461-6
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 18, 2021
  • Think, Write, Speak
    Think, Write, Speak
    Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews, and Letters to the Editor
    Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov Literary Trust
    978-1-101-87370-0
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 09, 2021
  • The Wapshot Chronicle
    The Wapshot Chronicle
    John Cheever
    978-0-593-08177-8
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 02, 2021
  • The Wapshot Scandal
    The Wapshot Scandal
    John Cheever
    978-0-593-31289-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 02, 2021
  • Love in the Time of Cholera (Illustrated Edition)
    Love in the Time of Cholera (Illustrated Edition)
    Gabriel García Márquez
    978-0-593-31085-4
    $25.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 27, 2020
  • The Scandal of the Century
    The Scandal of the Century
    And Other Writings
    Gabriel García Márquez
    978-0-525-56680-9
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 15, 2020
  • Personal Writings
    Personal Writings
    Albert Camus
    978-0-525-56721-9
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 04, 2020
  • Berta Isla
    Berta Isla
    A novel
    Javier Marías
    978-0-525-56312-9
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 07, 2020
  • Life for Sale
    Life for Sale
    Yukio Mishima
    978-0-525-56514-7
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 07, 2020
  • The Source of Self-Regard
    The Source of Self-Regard
    Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
    Toni Morrison
    978-0-525-56279-5
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 14, 2020
  • Love Is Blind
    Love Is Blind
    A novel
    William Boyd
    978-0-525-56444-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 24, 2019
  • So Much Life Left Over
    So Much Life Left Over
    A Novel
    Louis de Bernieres
    978-0-525-56441-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 09, 2019
  • Myra Breckinridge
    Myra Breckinridge
    Gore Vidal
    978-0-525-56650-2
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 21, 2019
  • Warlight
    Warlight
    Michael Ondaatje
    978-0-525-56296-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 02, 2019
  • First Person
    First Person
    Richard Flanagan
    978-0-525-43577-8
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 05, 2019
  • The Only Story
    The Only Story
    A novel
    Julian Barnes
    978-0-525-56306-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 05, 2019
  • A Long Way from Home
    A Long Way from Home
    Peter Carey
    978-0-525-43599-0
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 05, 2019
  • The Rub of Time
    The Rub of Time
    Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump: Essays and Reportage, 1994-2017
    Martin Amis
    978-1-4000-9599-5
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 22, 2019
  • I'm Not Here to Give a Speech
    I'm Not Here to Give a Speech
    Gabriel García Márquez
    978-1-101-91118-1
    $14.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 08, 2019
  • The Frolic of the Beasts
    The Frolic of the Beasts
    Yukio Mishima
    978-0-525-43415-3
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Nov 27, 2018
  • The Myth of Sisyphus
    The Myth of Sisyphus
    Albert Camus
    978-0-525-56445-4
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Nov 06, 2018
  • Dinner at the Center of the Earth
    Dinner at the Center of the Earth
    Nathan Englander
    978-0-525-43404-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 04, 2018
  • Between Eternities
    Between Eternities
    And Other Writings
    Javier Marías
    978-1-101-97211-3
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 28, 2018
  • A Boy in Winter
    A Boy in Winter
    A Novel
    Rachel Seiffert
    978-0-8041-6880-9
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 10, 2018
  • The Red-Haired Woman
    The Red-Haired Woman
    Orhan Pamuk
    978-1-101-97423-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 10, 2018
  • Men Without Women
    Men Without Women
    Stories
    Haruki Murakami
    978-1-101-97452-0
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 01, 2018
  • The Golden Legend
    The Golden Legend
    A novel
    Nadeem Aslam
    978-1-101-97338-7
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 24, 2018
  • The Woman on the Stairs
    The Woman on the Stairs
    A Novel
    Bernhard Schlink
    978-1-101-91234-8
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 20, 2018
  • A Horse Walks Into a Bar
    A Horse Walks Into a Bar
    A novel
    David Grossman
    978-1-101-97349-3
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 16, 2018
  • South and West
    South and West
    From a Notebook
    Joan Didion
    978-0-525-43419-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 02, 2018
  • Letters to Véra
    Letters to Véra
    Vladimir Nabokov
    978-0-307-47658-6
    $24.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Dec 12, 2017
  • House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories
    House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories
    Yasunari Kawabata
    978-0-525-43414-6
    $9.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Dec 12, 2017
  • The Boat Rocker
    The Boat Rocker
    A Novel
    Ha Jin
    978-0-8041-7037-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 17, 2017
  • Absolutely on Music
    Absolutely on Music
    Conversations
    Haruki Murakami, Seiji Ozawa
    978-0-8041-7372-8
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 03, 2017
  • The Spy
    The Spy
    A Novel of Mata Hari
    Paulo Coelho
    978-0-525-43279-1
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 27, 2017
  • Keeping an Eye Open
    Keeping an Eye Open
    Essays on Art
    Julian Barnes
    978-1-101-87337-3
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 13, 2017
  • The Noise of Time
    The Noise of Time
    A Novel
    Julian Barnes
    978-1-101-97118-5
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 13, 2017
  • I Am Not Your Negro
    I Am Not Your Negro
    A Companion Edition to the Documentary Film Directed by Raoul Peck
    James Baldwin, Raoul Peck
    978-0-525-43469-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 07, 2017
  • A Decent Ride
    A Decent Ride
    Irvine Welsh
    978-1-101-97084-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 10, 2017
  • Julieta (Movie Tie-in Edition)
    Julieta (Movie Tie-in Edition)
    Three Stories That Inspired the Movie
    Alice Munro
    978-0-525-43426-9
    $7.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Dec 13, 2016
  • Notwithstanding
    Notwithstanding
    Louis de Bernieres
    978-1-101-96987-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 18, 2016
  • A Strangeness in My Mind
    A Strangeness in My Mind
    A novel
    Orhan Pamuk
    978-0-307-74484-5
    $17.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 20, 2016
  • The Blue Guitar
    The Blue Guitar
    John Banville
    978-0-8041-7361-2
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 09, 2016
  • The Dust That Falls from Dreams
    The Dust That Falls from Dreams
    A Novel
    Louis de Bernieres
    978-1-101-97000-3
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 26, 2016
  • Wind/Pinball
    Wind/Pinball
    Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 (Two Novels)
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-8041-7014-7
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 03, 2016
  • England and Other Stories
    England and Other Stories
    Graham Swift
    978-1-101-87238-3
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 19, 2016
  • Odysseus Abroad
    Odysseus Abroad
    A novel
    Amit Chaudhuri
    978-1-101-97145-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 09, 2016
  • God Help the Child
    God Help the Child
    Toni Morrison
    978-0-307-74092-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 26, 2016
  • The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins
    The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins
    Irvine Welsh
    978-0-8041-7321-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 12, 2016
  • The Buried Giant
    The Buried Giant
    Kazuo Ishiguro
    978-0-307-45579-6
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 05, 2016
  • Amnesia
    Amnesia
    Peter Carey
    978-0-8041-7132-8
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Dec 08, 2015
  • Family Furnishings
    Family Furnishings
    Selected Stories, 1995-2014
    Alice Munro
    978-1-101-87235-2
    $18.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 15, 2015
  • A Wilderness Station
    A Wilderness Station
    Selected Stories, 1968-1994
    Alice Munro
    978-1-101-97036-2
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 15, 2015
  • The Prophet
    The Prophet
    Kahlil Gibran
    978-1-101-97078-2
    $9.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 21, 2015
  • A Map of Betrayal
    A Map of Betrayal
    A Novel
    Ha Jin
    978-0-8041-7036-9
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 07, 2015
  • The Zone of Interest
    The Zone of Interest
    Martin Amis
    978-0-8041-7289-9
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 07, 2015
  • The Walk Home
    The Walk Home
    A Novel
    Rachel Seiffert
    978-1-101-87343-4
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 23, 2015
  • Adultery
    Adultery
    Paulo Coelho
    978-1-101-87224-6
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 26, 2015
  • Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
    Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-8041-7012-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 05, 2015
  • The Narrow Road to the Deep North
    The Narrow Road to the Deep North
    Richard Flanagan
    978-0-8041-7147-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 14, 2015
  • The Fires of Autumn
    The Fires of Autumn
    Irene Nemirovsky
    978-1-101-87227-7
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 17, 2015
  • The News: A User's Manual
    The News: A User's Manual
    Alain De Botton
    978-0-307-47683-8
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Dec 02, 2014
  • Falling Out of Time
    Falling Out of Time
    David Grossman
    978-0-345-80585-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Dec 02, 2014
  • The Man of Feeling
    The Man of Feeling
    Javier Marías
    978-0-8041-7259-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 07, 2014
  • Levels of Life
    Levels of Life
    Julian Barnes
    978-0-345-80658-1
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 01, 2014
  • Beer in the Snooker Club
    Beer in the Snooker Club
    Waguih Ghali
    978-0-8041-7074-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 10, 2014
  • Subtle Bodies
    Subtle Bodies
    Norman Rush
    978-1-4000-7713-7
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 03, 2014
  • Going Home Again
    Going Home Again
    Dennis Bock
    978-1-4000-9610-7
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 06, 2014
  • The Infatuations
    The Infatuations
    Javier Marías
    978-0-307-95073-4
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 22, 2014
  • Vintage Munro
    Vintage Munro
    Nobel Prize Edition
    Alice Munro
    978-0-8041-7356-8
    $12.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 22, 2014
  • Bombay Stories
    Bombay Stories
    Saadat Hasan Manto
    978-0-8041-7060-4
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 25, 2014
  • Paradise
    Paradise
    Toni Morrison
    978-0-8041-6988-2
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 11, 2014
  • The Blind Man's Garden
    The Blind Man's Garden
    Nadeem Aslam
    978-0-345-80285-9
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 28, 2014
  • The Rainbow
    The Rainbow
    A Novel
    Yasunari Kawabata
    978-0-593-31492-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Nov 07, 2023
  • Soldiers' Pay
    Soldiers' Pay
    William Faulkner
    978-0-593-47096-1
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 15, 2023
  • Mosquitoes
    Mosquitoes
    William Faulkner
    978-0-593-47098-5
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 15, 2023
  • The Singularities
    The Singularities
    A novel
    John Banville
    978-0-525-65517-6
    $30.00 US
    Hardcover
    Knopf
    Oct 25, 2022
  • Medusa's Ankles
    Medusa's Ankles
    Selected Stories
    A. S. Byatt
    978-0-593-46685-8
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 06, 2022
  • Out (Special Edition)
    Out (Special Edition)
    Natsuo Kirino
    978-0-593-31195-0
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
    Aug 09, 2022
  • More Than I Love My Life
    More Than I Love My Life
    A novel
    David Grossman
    978-0-593-31259-9
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 12, 2022
  • The Living Sea of Waking Dreams
    The Living Sea of Waking Dreams
    A novel
    Richard Flanagan
    978-0-593-31370-1
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 26, 2022
  • Trio
    Trio
    A novel
    William Boyd
    978-0-593-31146-2
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 08, 2022
  • Klara and the Sun
    Klara and the Sun
    A novel
    Kazuo Ishiguro
    978-0-593-31129-5
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 01, 2022
  • Antiquities and Other Stories
    Antiquities and Other Stories
    Cynthia Ozick
    978-0-593-31276-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 01, 2022
  • Inside Story
    Inside Story
    A novel
    Martin Amis
    978-0-593-31171-4
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 22, 2022
  • Let Me Tell You What I Mean
    Let Me Tell You What I Mean
    Joan Didion
    978-0-593-31219-3
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 25, 2022
  • Palimpsest
    Palimpsest
    A Memoir
    Gore Vidal
    978-0-593-31439-5
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Nov 16, 2021
  • Season of Anomy
    Season of Anomy
    Wole Soyinka
    978-0-593-46719-0
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 14, 2021
  • The Interpreters
    The Interpreters
    Wole Soyinka
    978-0-593-46721-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 14, 2021
  • Here We Are
    Here We Are
    A novel
    Graham Swift
    978-1-9848-9952-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 10, 2021
  • Juneteenth (Revised)
    Juneteenth (Revised)
    Ralph Ellison
    978-0-593-31461-6
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 18, 2021
  • Think, Write, Speak
    Think, Write, Speak
    Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews, and Letters to the Editor
    Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov Literary Trust
    978-1-101-87370-0
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 09, 2021
  • The Wapshot Chronicle
    The Wapshot Chronicle
    John Cheever
    978-0-593-08177-8
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 02, 2021
  • The Wapshot Scandal
    The Wapshot Scandal
    John Cheever
    978-0-593-31289-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 02, 2021
  • Love in the Time of Cholera (Illustrated Edition)
    Love in the Time of Cholera (Illustrated Edition)
    Gabriel García Márquez
    978-0-593-31085-4
    $25.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 27, 2020
  • The Scandal of the Century
    The Scandal of the Century
    And Other Writings
    Gabriel García Márquez
    978-0-525-56680-9
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 15, 2020
  • Personal Writings
    Personal Writings
    Albert Camus
    978-0-525-56721-9
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 04, 2020
  • Berta Isla
    Berta Isla
    A novel
    Javier Marías
    978-0-525-56312-9
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 07, 2020
  • Life for Sale
    Life for Sale
    Yukio Mishima
    978-0-525-56514-7
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 07, 2020
  • The Source of Self-Regard
    The Source of Self-Regard
    Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
    Toni Morrison
    978-0-525-56279-5
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 14, 2020
  • Love Is Blind
    Love Is Blind
    A novel
    William Boyd
    978-0-525-56444-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 24, 2019
  • So Much Life Left Over
    So Much Life Left Over
    A Novel
    Louis de Bernieres
    978-0-525-56441-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 09, 2019
  • Myra Breckinridge
    Myra Breckinridge
    Gore Vidal
    978-0-525-56650-2
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 21, 2019
  • Warlight
    Warlight
    Michael Ondaatje
    978-0-525-56296-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 02, 2019
  • First Person
    First Person
    Richard Flanagan
    978-0-525-43577-8
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 05, 2019
  • The Only Story
    The Only Story
    A novel
    Julian Barnes
    978-0-525-56306-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 05, 2019
  • A Long Way from Home
    A Long Way from Home
    Peter Carey
    978-0-525-43599-0
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 05, 2019
  • The Rub of Time
    The Rub of Time
    Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump: Essays and Reportage, 1994-2017
    Martin Amis
    978-1-4000-9599-5
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