The End of the Alphabet (10 page)

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CS Richardson is a novitiate novelist and accomplished book designer. He has worked in publishing for over twenty years and is a multiple recipient of the Alcuin Award (Canada's highest honour for excellence in book design). His design work has been exhibited at both the Frankfurt and Leipzig Book Fairs.
The End of the Alphabet
has been sold in ten countries. He is currently at work on his second novel.

 

“
The End of the Alphabet
is a lovely little novel that packs a big emotional wallop. E.B. White, who urged all writers to ‘omit needless words,' would be smitten…. As witty and pointed as the best of Noel Coward's plays.”

—
USA Today

“Small and slender, it fits like a lover's hand nestled in your own, the perfect valentine…. There is something so immediately humane and honest about this story that plays out over a scant 140 pages, something so old-fashionedly romantic, the book all but throbs with feeling in your hands…. Romantically inclined readers should find themselves over the moon.”

—
Edmonton Journal

“Richardson enters fictional territory previously marked out by writers no less grand than Tolstoy and Kafka…. Gentle, wistful, almost otherworldly.”

—
Toronto Star

“The book is less than 140 pages—the word count is probably that of a novella—but it has the weight of a 400-page novel. The ending resonates long after you've reached the last letter.”

—
Torontoist.
com

“This book is a stunning accomplishment. To say so much in so few words—breathtaking….

Give it to the one you love and say, ‘I love you like this.'

Give it to someone who has lost, or is losing, someone and say, ‘It must hurt so much.'

Give it to someone who's lost himself and say, ‘Live.'

Give it to someone who needs to hope, who needs to cry, or who needs to really dream—and say nothing at all.”

—Keri Holmes, bookseller, The Kaleidoscope (Hampton, Iowa)

“A novel that can be read in a single sitting of less than two hours that might continue to resonate with readers for weeks, months, even years.”

—
Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

“A dazzling exercise in understatement that centers on a seemingly grim topic: the final 30 days in the life of Ambrose Zephyr, a 50-year-old London ad man—and the end of his union with his wife, Zappora, a fashion magazine editor. Stricken with an unnamed disease that will kill him within a month, Zephyr (who is fixated on the alphabet) persuades Zappora to join him on a tour of great cities from Amsterdam to Istanbul. He takes in all the strange magic of it all; she's battered by love, anger and terror…. Richardson offers a compelling look at an enviable marriage—one that just happens to be coming to an end.”

—
PEOPLE

“An alphabet of the language of lovers, a beautiful fable of art and mortality: elegant, wise and humane. I like to think of the happiness this book will bring. I'm sure it will be given as a gift between lovers, and will inspire many journeys—geographical and emotional.”

—Chris Cleave, author of
Incendiary

“A gem of a book, [
The End of the Alphabet
] delivers more fable than fiction, more elongated short story than conventional first novel. Although characters, locales and comic touches will put many readers in mind of Mavis Gallant's European stories, Richardson's style is as minimalist as Norman Levine's. This is a very difficult book to put down at bedtime, even when the final page is turned. Like both Gallant and Levine, Richardson not only has an interesting story to tell, but writes with such visual and emotional density that the end of one reading readily becomes the start of another.”

—
The Globe and Mail

 

 

COPYRIGHT © 2007 DRAVOT & CARNEHAN INC.

Anchor Canada edition 2008

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

Anchor Canada and colophon are trademarks.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Richardson, CS

The end of the alphabet / CS Richardson.—Anchor Canada ed.

eISBN: 978-0-307-37194-2

I. Title.

PS8635.I325E63 2008     C813'.6     C2007-906207-5

Published in Canada by
Anchor Canada, a division of
Random House of Canada Limited

Visit Random House of Canada Limited's website:
www.randomhouse.ca

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