The Darkness of Wallis Simpson

Wallis Simpson, the twice-divorced American woman for whom Edward Vlll abdicated in 1936, ended her life as the prisoner of her lawyer who would not allow anyone - friend, foe or journalist - to visit her in her Paris flat. Rose Tremain takes this true story and transforms it into an imaginative and ironic fiction. Her thesis is that Wallis, gaga and bed-ridden, has forgotten the king who gave up an empire for love of her. The other stories in this magnificent collection range over a variety of themes, equally original and unexpected. An East German border guard, redundant after the Berlin Wall comes down in 1989, imagines that he might still have a purpose in life: he tries to reach Russia by bicycling across the hostile wastes of Poland. A jilted man gets his revenge. A baby grows wings. A character in an "Impressionist" painting escapes from his 'frame' - or does he? And there's a Christmas story set in a seedy hotel...

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"This collection is a jewel-box containing gems of near perfection ... She's a consistently superior writer. Do yourself - and literature - a service: Read her."<br>-- "Globe & Mail" <br>." . . moving and tragic. The Darkness of Rose Tremain is never far from the surface in this brilliantly written short story collection." <br>-- "Express" <br>"Written with the deft imagination we've come to know and love from Rose Tremain." <br>-- "Good Housekeeping <br>""Mordantly perceptive tales." <br>--" Sunday Times" <br>"Her exactness and lightness of touch in scene-setting are used to superb effect in her short stories." <br>-- "Independent on Sunday"

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Rose Tremain lives in North London and Norwich, with the biographer Richard Holmes. Her books have won many prizes including the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Prix Femina Etranger, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Angel Literary Award and the Sunday Express Book of the Year. Restoration was shortlisted for the Booker and made into a film; The Colour was shortlisted for the Orange and selected by the Daily Mail Reading Club. Her most recent collection, The Darkness of Wallis Simpson, was shortlisted for both the First National Short story Award and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and her most recent novel, The Road Home, won the Orange Prize for fiction 2008. Two of her books (The Colour and The Way I Found Her) are in development as films, and she is currently working on a TV screenplay to star Sir Ian McKellen.

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