The Fearsome Particles

Trevor Cole

Language: English

Published: Jan 2, 2006

Description:

Review

“Trevor Cole has written an Ordinary People for the 21st century.”
Maclean’s

“Cole’s writing is reminiscent of that of Carol Shields: he can be hilariously funny and profoundly serious at the same time. . . . He not only cares about what’s right in front of him, he makes his readers care too.”
Montreal Gazette

“Impressive — funny, absorbing. . . . beautifully authentic.”
Winnipeg Free Press

“_The Fearsome Particles _is a workplace comedy enveloped by human tragedy, a sympathetic study of postwar trauma played to the laugh track of finely observed farce. . . . Pitch-perfect.”
— John Allemang

“Humour that comes froma deeper, more satisfying place . . . . The book soars.” — Quill & Quire

“The novel is well-plotted, smart and perceptive, and very funny much in the same way that Kingsley Amis’s mature work was darkly humorous even at its most mordant . . . . Cole is one of the best young novelists in this country.”
— _Globe and Mail

_“With writing like this, Trevor Cole is quickly gaining a reputation as a major talent, deservedly so.”
Edmonton Journal

“Trevor Cole is emerging as a master of obsessive-delusional-neurotic-tragicomic fiction. His two novels, Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life (which was shortlisted for a 2004 Governor General's Award for Fiction) and his latest, The Fearsome Particles, both told from the points of view of obsessive and delusional people, are distressing and sometimes cringe-making funny, their humour akin to that of David Brent trying to assert his power in the BBC TV series The Office. Cole's skill at evoking this humour suggests that he himself is quiveringly attuned to the tiny shudders–say, an inexplicable bid in a game of cards–that suggest the life-threatening fault lines in people's lives. And Cole's prose is so confident, compassionate and clear that it draws out that neurotic admission: I wish I'd written that.”
Literary Review of Canada

"Good writing declares itself immediately. How comforting for a reader to know — after only a few pages in Mr. Cole's company — that he is in such safe hands."
—Governor General’s Award winner David Gilmour

"Cole belongs to the Truman Capote school of stylists; his prose is clear as a mountain stream."
Toronto Star

"Trevor Cole knows how to tell a story of the I-couldn’t-put-it-down variety. . . . Just delicious!"
Globe and Mail

Product Description

Trevor Cole’s bestselling debut novel garnered rave reviews and comparisons to Truman Capote and Kingsley Amis. Now the Governor General’s Award finalist is back with The Fearsome Particles, a brilliantly observed comic tragedy about the widening cracks in a family’s picture-perfect veneer.

Gerald Woodlore, a window screen executive, wakes one morning to find, to his utter dismay, that he has reached the limits of what he can control. The company he works for is rapidly losing market share and a junior assistant seems to be the only one with an idea how to fix it. His wife, Vicki, a luxury real-estate dresser, appears to be bending under the pressures of constructing an image of perfect happiness both at work and at home. But most worrying of all is Gerald and Vicki’s twenty-year-old son, Kyle, who quit school to volunteer with the military’s civilian support staff in Afghanistan. Now he has returned early and retreated to his room in the wake of a mysterious and traumatic event.

With his trademark wit and strong emotional insight, Trevor Cole has created a compelling, tender story that captures a family at a crucial turning point.

The Fearsome Particles has recently been optioned for film.