The Bird of Night

Last updated

The Bird of Night
BirdOfNight.jpg
First edition
Author Susan Hill
LanguageEnglish
Published1972 Hamish Hamilton (UK)
1973 Saturday Review Press (US)
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Pages186
ISBN 0-241-02258-4

The Bird of Night is a 1972 novel by Susan Hill.

In 1972, the book won the Whitbread Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Contents

Susan Hill commented in 2006, "A novel of mine was shortlisted for Booker and won the Whitbread Prize for Fiction. It was a book I have never rated. I don't think it works, though there are a few good things in it. I don't believe in the characters or the story." [1]

Plot introduction

Francis Croft was a great poet but suffered from bouts of madness. His companion Harvey Lawson tried to protect him for 20 years, together they spent time in Venice and then Francis travelled to America. On his return his condition worsened leading to his suicide. Harvey then burnt all his papers to shut out an inquisitive world. [2]

Reception

Star-News is positive "The intriguing saga of Francis and his journey through life, and madness, is a story worthy of the finest storyteller. The emphasis on finest detail and the close relation between a character's mental condition and physical age provide an engrossing chronicle...A part of the reason for the ability of Hill to convey the madness theme is the presence of a second character, Harvey Lawson. The agony of Francis is shared and depicted in the memory and writing of Lawson. [3]

Footnotes

  1. Susan Hill's blog entry 20 Aug 2006 Archived 28 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Susan Hill’s evocative exploration of love and madness charts the relationship between a brilliant but unhinged poet and his faithful companion Retrieved 17/10/2022.
  3. Star News, March 4th 1973 Retrieved 17/10/2022.

See also


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beryl Bainbridge</span> English writer (1932–2010)

Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge was an English writer. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working class. She won the Whitbread Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996, and was nominated five times for the Booker Prize. She was described in 2007 as a national treasure. In 2008, The Times named Bainbridge on their list of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Boyd (writer)</span> Scottish novelist, short story writer, and screen writer (born 1952)

William Andrew Murray Boyd is a British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter.

William Trevor Cox, known by his pen name William Trevor, was an Irish novelist, playwright, and short story writer. One of the elder statesmen of the Irish literary world, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary writers of short stories in the English language.

<i>The Moors Last Sigh</i> 1995 novel by Salman Rushdie

The Moor's Last Sigh is the fifth novel by Salman Rushdie, published in 1995. It is set in the Indian cities of Bombay and Cochin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth J. Harvey</span> Canadian novelist, filmmaker, and journalist

Kenneth Joseph Thomas Harvey is a Canadian writer and filmmaker from Newfoundland and Labrador.

Dame Susan Elizabeth Hill, Lady Wells is an English author of fiction and non-fiction works. Her novels include The Woman in Black, which has been adapted for stage and screen, The Mist in the Mirror, and I'm the King of the Castle, for which she received the Somerset Maugham Award in 1971. She also won the Whitbread Novel Award in 1972 for The Bird of Night, which was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Justin Cartwright</span> British novelist (1943–2018)

Justin James Cartwright was a British novelist, originally from South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Costa Book Awards</span> Former annual literary awards

The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then a brewery and owner of pub-restaurant chains, it was renamed when Costa Coffee, then a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship. The companion Costa Short Story Award was established in 2012. Costa Coffee was purchased by the Coca-Cola Company in 2018. The awards were abruptly terminated in 2022.

Tobias Fleet Hill was a British poet, essayist, writer of short stories and novelist.

Michael Symmons Roberts FRSL is a British poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lavinia Greenlaw</span> English poet and novelist (born 1962)

Lavinia Elaine Greenlaw is an English poet, novelist and non-fiction writer. She won the Prix du Premier Roman with her first novel and her poetry has been shortlisted for awards that include the T. S. Eliot Prize, Forward Prize and Whitbread Poetry Prize. She was shortlisted for the 2014 Costa Poetry Award for A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde. Greenlaw currently holds the post of Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry) at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Adam Thorpe is a British poet and novelist whose works also include short stories, translations, radio dramas and documentaries. He is a frequent contributor of reviews and articles to various newspapers, journals and magazines, including the Guardian, the Poetry Review and the Times Literary Supplement.

Jane Mary Gardam is an English writer of children's and adult fiction. She also writes reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and writes for BBC radio. She lives in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She has won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abdulrazak Gurnah</span> Novelist and Nobel laureate (born 1948)

Abdulrazak Gurnah is a Tanzanian-born British novelist and academic. He was born in the Sultanate of Zanzibar and moved to the United Kingdom in the 1960s as a refugee during the Zanzibar Revolution. His novels include Paradise (1994), which was shortlisted for both the Booker and the Whitbread Prize; By the Sea (2001), which was longlisted for the Booker and shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Desertion (2005), shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

Jennifer Johnston is an Irish novelist. She has won a number of awards, including the Whitbread Book Award for The Old Jest in 1979 and a Lifetime Achievement from the Irish Book Awards (2012). The Old Jest, a novel about the Irish War of Independence, was later made into a film called The Dawning, starring Anthony Hopkins, produced by Sarah Lawson and directed by Robert Knights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Crace</span> English novelist, play, short story writer (born 1946)

James Crace is an English novelist, playwright and short story writer. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999, Crace was born in Hertfordshire and has lectured at the University of Texas at Austin. His novels have been translated into 28 languages—including Norwegian, Japanese, Portuguese and Hebrew.

Susan Fromberg Schaeffer was an American novelist and poet who was a Professor of English at Brooklyn College for more than thirty years. She won numerous national writing awards and contributed book reviews for The New York Times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Williams (writer)</span> Canadian poet and writer

Ian Williams is a Canadian poet and fiction writer. His collection of short stories, Not Anyone's Anything, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and his debut novel, Reproduction, was awarded the 2019 Giller Prize. His work has been shortlisted for various awards, as well.

Diana Lois Hendry is an English poet, children's author and short story writer. She won a Whitbread Award in 1991 and was again shortlisted for the prize in 2012.

This article is focused on English-language literature rather than the literature of England, so that it includes writers from Scotland, Wales, and the whole of Ireland, as well as literature in English from former British colonies. It also includes, to some extent, the United States, though the main article for that is American literature.