Graham Swift, Ever After

Anastasia Logotheti (Deree-The American College of Greece)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kerry Myler (Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1992

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

In his fifth novel, Ever After (1992), Graham Swift continues to explore the influence of the past on the present through intertwining stories of loss from the 1840s to the end of the twentieth century. Fifty-two-year-old narrator Bill Unwin self-consciously links his own losses with the spiritual crisis experienced by Matthew Pearce, a Victorian ancestor, in an attempt to construct a coherent history out of the enigmas of the past. A literature professor, Unwin readily acknowledges that he is “not in the business of strict historiography” (90). Resorting to writing after a failed suicide attempt, the one-time lecturer in English and theatrical manager, readily admits that he has never written “anything …

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6394 words

Citation: Logotheti, Anastasia. "Ever After". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 August 2004; last revised 13 February 2019. [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5263, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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