{"product_id":"9781302924195","title":"Marvel Monograph: The Art of Mark Brooks","description":"This haunting and comic fable from the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Sleepwalkers' Ball\u003c\/i\u003e is a beautiful and heartbreaking journey \u003cp\u003ethrough memory, loss and imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRumour and suspicion engulf an eerily fog-bound town as its residents begin to receive tickets promising passage across \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe mist-shrouded bay to the mysterious 'other side'. For Alex and his family, this seems like the beginning of a great \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eadventure, but as reports of a shadowy, half-glimpsed ship start to circulate, so too does the gossip and anxious \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003especulation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhy have some been selected and not others?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWho are the employees of the enigmatic White Star Shipping Company?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eAnd what ultimately awaits the passengers as they pass over to the spectral and unseen other side?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBilton has created an alternate universe, vividly detailed but utterly ambiguous, absurd and bewildering, a dream that \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003elingers in the mind long after the last page is turned.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDreamlike and immersive, \u003ci\u003eThe Known and Unknown Sea\u003c\/i\u003e is a pantomime nightmare, surreal, terrifying and hilarious, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003efull of masks and metamorphoses. It's a world seen through the eyes of children, magical, kaleidoscopic and \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eincomprehensible, beautifully characterised: the fierce Bethan, little Hwyl with his rag-doll indestructibility, the \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ebearded ogre of The Ship's Doctor. The book is a darkness lit by flashes of blinding light and sudden, bewildering \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003echanges of scene, an infinitely spiralled, inescapable world that echoes with strange voices: Freud and Dylan Thomas, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDante, Kafka and Günter Grass.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e* \u003cbr\u003e• *\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlan Bilton\u003c\/b\u003e was born in York, UK in 1969. In keeping with the two main sources of employment back then, his family \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eeither worked on the railways or in chocolate. Unlike his more practical and mechanically-minded brothers, he became \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eneither a surveyor nor a train-spotter. Rather, he received his undergraduate degree in Literature and Film from Stirling \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUniversity in 1991, and his PhD (for a study of Don DeLillo, an author with whom he has absolutely nothing in common in \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eany way) from Manchester University in 1995. He then taught American Studies at Liverpool Hope University College and \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eManchester University before moving to take up a post teaching literature and film at Swansea University in 1996. He is \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003emarried, with one small child and one hairy dog. His first novel, The Sleepwalkers' Ball, described by one critic as \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Kafka meets Mary Poppins', was published by Alcemi in 2009. He is also the author of books on silent film comedy, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003econtemporary fiction, and America in the 1920s, alongside short stories, essays and reviews. He teaches Creative Writing, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003efiction and film at Swansea.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Marvel Enterprises, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47021460291824,"sku":"9781302924195","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781302924195_p0.jpg?v=1763706305","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781302924195","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}