The Absolutist
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  • Published: 7 July 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446471913
  • Imprint: RH AudioGo
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 8 hr 37 min
  • Narrator: Michael Maloney

The Absolutist

Formats & editions
Paperback
1 Jun 2012
EBook
1 Jun 2011
Audiobook
7 Jul 2011
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The dazzling new novel from the bestselling author of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas.

September 1919: twenty-one-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver some letters to Marian Bancroft. Tristan fought alongside Marian's brother Will during the Great War, but in 1917 Will laid down his guns on the battlefield, declared himself a conscientious objector and was shot as a traitor, an act which has brought shame and dishonour on the Bancroft family.

But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan's visit. He holds a secret deep in his soul. One that he is desperate to unburden himself of to Marian, if he can only find the courage.

As he recalls his friendship with Will, from the training ground at Aldershot to the trenches of Northern France, he speaks of how the intensity of their friendship brought him both happiness and self-discovery as well as despair and pain.

The Absolutist is a novel that examines the events of the Great War from the perspective of two young soldiers, both struggling with the complexity of their emotions and the confusion of their friendship.
  • Published: 7 July 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446471913
  • Imprint: RH AudioGo
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 8 hr 37 min
  • Narrator: Michael Maloney
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About the author

John Boyne

John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971. He is the author of eleven novels for adults, six for younger readers and a collection of short stories. Perhaps best known for his 2006 multi-award-winning book The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, John’s other novels, notably The Absolutist and A History of Loneliness, have been widely praised and are international bestsellers. Most recently, The Heart's Invisible Furies was a Richard & Judy Bookclub word-of-mouth bestseller, and A Ladder to the Sky was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award in association with Listowel Writers’ Week.

His novels are published in over fifty languages.

portrait photo of John Boyne

Also by John Boyne

Water
All The Broken Places
Noah Barleywater Runs Away
This House is Haunted
The Heart's Invisible Furies
The Echo Chamber
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
See all

Praise for The Absolutist

A wonderful, sad, tender book. There are some amazing things about this novel - one is the simplicity and purity of the narrative line; another is the sort of complexity within the characters and the emotions and the motives; another is the sense of the period, with all its restrictions. The book is going to have an enormous impact on everyone who reads it.

Colm Toibin

Extraordinary...The narrative is by turns surprising and tragic in equal measure while its troubling conclusion will stay with readers long after they've closed the book.

Carlo Gebler

Powerful, poignant and beautifully written. This will become a classic war novel.

The Bookseller

John Boyne brings a completely fresh eye to the most important stories. He guides us through the realm of history and makes the journey substantial, poignant and real. He is one of the great craftsmen in contemporary literature.

Colum McCann

A fiercely interrogative novel that asks not just what it means to be a man but also what it means to be a human being in the extreme circumstances of war.

Irish Times

A superb evocation of the Great War and its very human effects.

Choice Magazine