New Anna Kavan Novel Coming

As learned from the UK's Guardian's book blog, a manuscript was discovered among Anna Kavan's papers at the University of Tulsa. Of course, I've been looking for a reason to get down there and go through them myself. And then maybe I would have been the one to discover this book.

Anyway, the publisher, Peter Owen Publishers, describe the book as such:



Set in an unspecified but eerily familiar time and landscape, Guilty is narrated by Mark. He begins the novel as a young boy whose father has just returned from war. In spite of being garlanded as a hero, Mark's father declares himself a pacifist and is immediately reviled in a country still suffering from the divisions of war. When his father is forced into exile Mark meets Mr Spector, a shady figure who from then on is a dominant force in Mark's life, seeing him through his schooling, employment and even finding him accommodation. When Mark tries to break off with Mr Spector in order to pursue an engagement with the beautiful but docile Carla his life begins to unravel. Thwarted at every turn by a Kafkaesque bureaucracy he begins to fall prey to the machinations and insecurities of his guilt-ridden mind.

Sounds like traditional Kavan to me. I can't wait to read it. I've actually been wondering what Kavan I was going to re-read this year, and now I have something new to read. The trouble is that it is being released in the UK now, and we won't see it here until October. Sounds like eBay time.