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Stranger on a Train Jenny Diski

Stranger on a Train By Jenny Diski

Stranger on a Train by Jenny Diski


$15.49
Condition - Very Good
7 in stock

Summary

Despite the fact that her idea of travel is to stay home with the phone off the hook, Diski takes a trip around the perimeter of the US by train. Meeting all kinds of characters, she broods on the familiarity of the landscape and the trip becomes a study of strangers, strangeness and estrangement.

Stranger on a Train Summary

Stranger on a Train: Daydreaming and Smoking Around America by Jenny Diski

In spite of the fact that her idea of travel is to stay home with the phone off the hook, Jenny Diski takes a trip around the perimeter of the USA by train. Somewhat reluctantly she meets all kinds of characters, all bursting with stories to tell, and finds herself brooding about the marvellously familiar landscape of America, half-known already through film and television. Like the pulse of the train over the rails, the theme of the dying pleasures of smoking thrums through the book, along with reflections on the condition of solitude and the nature of friendship and memories triggered by her past times in psychiatric hospitals. Cutting between her troubled teenaged years and contemporary America, the journey becomes a study of strangers, strangeness and estrangement - from oneself, as well as from the world.

Stranger on a Train Reviews

Her writing is sensitive, sincere and sparkling. Morning Star

(Diski s) near-erotic musings on the dreaded weed almost made me want to take up smoking again. And that s saying something. Irish Times

poignant and beautifully written . . . a profound and unsettling account of alienation

PETER PARKER presenting the J R Ackerley Award for Autobiography to JENNY DISKI

Beautifully written Times

'More like a memoir than a travelogue: a magical history tour' Sunday Telegraph

'she has left us with a gripping, stark portrayal of America and isolation.' - Niamh Kavanagh, Ireland on Sunday

'An ingeniously structured catalogue of autobiographical recollections' Ink

About Jenny Diski

Jenny Diski was born in 1947 in London where she has lived most of her life. She recently moved to Cambridge. She is the author of eight novels and an acclaimed memoir and her journalism has appeared in the Mail on Sunday, the Observer and the London Review of Books, amongst others.

Additional information

GOR003079656
9781860498916
1860498914
Stranger on a Train: Daydreaming and Smoking Around America by Jenny Diski
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Little, Brown Book Group
20020829
288
Winner of Thomas Cook Travel Book Award 2003 Winner of Joe Ackerley Prize 2003 Short-listed for Thomas Cook Travel Book Award 2003
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Stranger on a Train