CANCELLED - author talk: The Prentice-Boy by Ray Rumsby
POSTPONED - NEW DATE TO BE ANNOUNCED
Saturday 12th November
in the shop - 11am - author talk and book signing - free entry!
Please register via Eventbrite if you wish to attend so we know how many people to expect.
Join Ray Rumsby in the shop to hear about his historical novel for our times - The Prentice-Boy
In 1820, aquatint artist William Daniell of London hires Jesse Cloud, a homeless teenager, as his apprentice. But all is not as it seems. An eventful East Anglian tour impels both on their own inner journeys, exposing others’ betrayals and exploring their own possibilities. Faced with bankruptcy, starvation looms. The artist must learn how to see and his prentice must learn how to survive – while the truth shatters all.
Set a year after Peterloo, this historical novel focuses particularly upon poverty and exploitation, and the limitations upon women in the early days of organised struggle for rights
Following a career as an English specialist in state education, former Southampton resident, Ray Rumsby is a published author, dramatist and bookshop campaigner! In The Prentice-Boy, the central characters themselves describe how this unusual partnership progresses, how both have their secrets, coming to show the frailty, doubts, and resilience of lives on the edge. Ray tells us that the strong social and feminist concerns in the story led him ‘to find unsettling parallels between society two centuries ago, and our situation now’.
‘I was genuinely sorry to finish this book. It had me completely engaged... and I loved the clever surprise in the middle of it.’ Louis de Bernières
Please register via Eventbrite if you wish to attend so we know how many people to expect.
If you would like to order a copy of 'The Prentice-Boy’ in advance to collect from the shop email us at: info@octoberbooks.org
If you would like copies delivered directly to your door, you can order them here
Find out more about the publisher on FB: @claretpublisher and twitter and insta: @claretpress
