Description

By (author) Newby P. H.

Short /annotation:

Winner of the inaugural Booker Prize in 1969.

It is 1956 and Townrow is in Port Said – of these two facts he”s reasonably certain. In this disorientating world Townrow must assess the rules by which he has been living his life – to wonder whether he, too, may have something to answer for . .

Winner of the inaugural Booker Prize in 1969.

It is 1956 and Townrow is in Port Said – of these two facts he”s reasonably certain. He has been summoned by the widow of his deceased friend, Elie Khoury. She is convinced that Elie was murdered, but nobody seems to agree with her. What about Leah Strauss, the mistress? And the invading British paratroops? Only an Englishman, surely, would take for granted that the British have behaved themselves. In this disorientating world Townrow must assess the rules by which he has been living his life – to wonder whether he, too, may have something to answer for . . .

Biographical note:
Percy Howard Newby wrote twenty-three novels and six works of non-fiction. He was born in East Sussex in 1918. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1939, and visited Egypt for the first time in 1941, as part of the army”s Middle East Force. From 1942 Newby was released from the army to teach English Literature at Fouad 1st University in Cairo, where he stayed until 1946. During that time he wrote his first novel. In 1947 he returned to England to write, joining the BBC in 1949 as a talks producer. He created literary-based broadcasting for the Third Programme (which became Radio Three), before becoming controller of that station in 1958, and then Managing Director of BBC Radio in 1975. He retired from the BBC in 1978, having been awarded a CBE. Newby died in 1997, in Oxfordshire.

Promotional headline:
The winner of the inaugural Booker Prize in 1969, Something to Answer For is a humorous, macabre and beautifully intricate novel set in Egypt during the Suez Crisis.

Review quote: previous edition:
Beautifully written, shot through with crisp, mordant wit.

Review quote: previous edition:
Newby deserved, and deserves, more attention. Graham Greene called him “a fine writer who has never had the full recognition that he deserves,” and that”s as true now as it was in Newby”s lifetime . . . Something to Answer For is set in the Egypt of 1956, during the Suez Crisis, and it boasts a wonderful sense of place.

Review quote: previous edition:
A vividly exciting novel.

Review quote: previous edition:
Masterly . . . Egypt at the time of Suez is not the best place to mislay your background, have a mysteriously motivated love affair, or sort out the oddities of an old friend”s death. But Mr. Newby has a sure touch with the bizarre, and a pleasing comic seriousness.