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Biographical note: Mark Illis has written three novels, A Chinese Summer, The Alchemist and The Feather Report. His stories have been published in many magazines and anthologies, and he also writes for TV and radio. He has worked as a Literature Development Worker, and as a Centre Director for the Arvon Foundation. He continues to write short stories and is working on a new novel. Born in London, Mark now lives in West Yorkshire with his wife and two children.
BIC Basic
EAN13: 9781844715268
ISBN: 9781844715268
Author: Mark Illis
Title: Tender
Series: Salt Modern Fiction
Product class: BC
Language: eng
Audience: General/trade
BIC subject category: CTCH
Publisher: Salt Publishing
Pub date: 15-Apr-09
Extent: 160pp
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight: 240 gms
Supplier: Gardners Books
Supplier: Ingram Book Group
Supplier: Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability: NP
Price: GBP 8.99
Price: USD 14.95
Rights: World
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Short
description/annotation: Tender is the story of the Dax family. Over thirty years we watch their iives unfold in ordinary and extraordinary ways as they try to cope with life, and each other. They’re a family with a history that develops in front of your eyes. A family with stories to tell.
Main description: Tender is the story of the Dax family. Or the stories of the Dax family. When Ali and Bill meet it’s 1974, she’s a physiotherapist with a broken heart, he’s a cycle courier who dreams of writing a Hollywood film. In the next story it’s their first wedding anniversary, in the next Ali’s pregnant, and so we go on, revisiting the family on key occasions over thirty years, watching relationships develop, children grow up, big moments occur, as life unfolds in its normal, and sometimes far from normal, way. The point of view shifts from story to story, so that we see things first through Ali’s eyes, then Bill’s, and later through the eyes of their children, Sean and Rosa. And then there’s Ali’s brother, Frank, popping up now and then with his own unique way of viewing the world. And what happens? At various times, Ali has murder on her mind, Bill fears his life is turning into sit-com, Rosa is bullied, Sean plots escape and Frank …no one really knows what’s going on in Frank’s head. Just an ordinary family, then, trying to cope with life, and each other. A family with a history that develops in front of your eyes. A family with stories to tell.
Table of contents:
1974: The Last Person To Swim The Channel, Ever
1977: Deep Water
1984: A Man In Space
1989: Being Nice
1995: There’s A Hole In Everything
1999: The Pretty Horse
1999: The Realm of the Possible
2000: Hiatus
2000: Gladness
2001: Houdini
2001: War and Fish
2002: On The Heart, and Other Muscles
2004: The Death of a Friend of a Friend
Acknowledgements View excerpt as PDF:  Click here to view a sample (84 KB)
Excerpt from book:
from 1974: The Last Person To Swim The Channel, Ever
Dan came in, sat beside the bed like a doctor with a patient, and said, ‘I’ll be leaving.’ The reading lamp was glowing around his stomach, hiding his face in grainy half-darkness. ‘I’ll be leaving.’ Bent towards her, his head at a solicitous angle, his voice apologetic but firm. And that was him gone. Two years in her life, just a cameo role, as it turned out.
Ali heard the door close, lay perfectly still for five seconds, then got out of bed, pulled on jeans and a vest, fetched what she needed from a kitchen drawer, and let herself quietly out of the flat. Down the stairs at a discreet trot and on to the street. A glimpse of his red bomber at the corner. He was turning off Astley Street, towards Grange Road. She followed.
It was quiet, and she had to go cautiously. For a while she walked behind two young men with bulky rucksacks. Their labels boasted they’d been to Hong Kong, Sydney and Amsterdam. She peered round them, just ten steps away from Dan, then was left stalled and exposed as they veered left unexpectedly. Only a doorway saved her when Dan paused and looked back. (Why did he look back? Had he caught a glimpse of her in the wing mirror of a parked car? Or had he sensed her more mysteriously, through some intimate telepathy? Perhaps he’d smelt her; that just out of bed, toasty, seedy smell, mingling now with an edge of something extra. Anticipation.)
A couple arm-in-arm provided her next cover as she stalked him. She watched Dan’s back in the frame of their engrossed faces. He was intermittently hidden when they kissed, lips colliding, recklessly moving forward with eyes only for each other.
He was near his flat now, and she abandoned the sickening couple and approached as he fumbled for his key, her stride swift and certain. She let him fit the key into the lock, she let him turn it, then she was behind him, squashed up against him and using her momentum to hustle him inside. She kicked the door shut with her heel, pressed him against the wall. She had perhaps a second of startle-time in which to act. The kitchen knife was out and ready. A long, thin blade, surgical. She stuck it in him without hesitation. There was resistance from his jacket and his shirt, then an easy, lubricated slide. He made a sound like a cough, then sighed, an exhalation without meaning, like air from a puncture. She held him as he sagged in her arms, suddenly mortal, fragile, and heavy. They sank together to their knees, Ali still holding him, and he slumped, leaning on her. They sat together like that while the life drained out of him, and she whispered, ‘All right, you’re leaving, don’t struggle my love, you’re leaving now.’
Stop. Stop this and rewind.
She didn’t hold Dan sagging, mortal etcetera, she didn’t stab him, didn’t push him through the doorway. She did follow him through the streets, but briefly, because she was only wearing a T-shirt and a towel she’d grabbed and wrapped around her middle. Barefoot on the cold pavement, shivering, half-naked, feeling almost the second she stepped outside like an idiot. What did she think she was doing? She paused on a corner and watched him cross the road, turn and disappear, oblivious. She stood a few seconds, holding the moment, wanting to prolong it, then she went back to her flat, and back to bed. She lay still, staring at the ceiling, and came up with the sequence with the kitchen knife, worked through it first quickly then slowly, toying with each beat, lovingly crafting the short tale of vengeance and passion.
Unpublished endorsement: Mark Illis is a great stylist: eloquent, graceful, quiet. His work has wonderful subtlety and surprising strength. Anne Enright Previous review quote: On A Chinese Summer: Haunting and perceptive. Books Previous review quote: On A Chinese Summer: Excellent first novel. Literary Review Previous review quote: On A Chinese Summer: Rich in passion and promise. New York Times Book Review Previous review quote: On The Alchemist: Freely enjoyable, smart, wry-humoured, even poetic. London Review of Books Previous review quote: On The Alchemist: Moving and entertaining. Times Educational Supplement Previous review quote: On The Alchemist: The main attraction is Illis’s ability to dazzle with character and imagination. Evening Standard Previous review quote: On The Alchemist: Illis has the gift of the philosopher’s stone. The Times Previous review quote: On The Feather Report: This very intelligent book is refreshingly sane, and it gives a funny but compassionate picture of the human need for order, the different ways that people try to cope with life, and the almost universal madness involved in reading the world. Times Literary Supplement |
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