Lovelock Including The Man From Nowhere Berlin Diary

Description

Now a classic, this new edition of Lovelock is republished together with 'Berlin Diary', McNeish's journal written in Germany while researching the novel; and an afterword, which contains a sobering commentary on Lovelock's death. Jack Lovelock has been called the first modern athlete. He became famous internationally when he broke the world record to take the gold medal in the 1500 metres event at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936. His unexpected victory against 'the greatest field of milers ever assembled' has all the hallmarks of a great discovery. A medical student, he treated his body as a human laboratory. Yet a mystery remains. In 1949 a few days before his 40th birthday, Jack Lovelock was killed when he fell beneath a train in New York. The enigma of his death becomes the key to McNeish's quest for the 'real' Lovelock - a man who in the author's words 'covered his traces as adroitly as he ran'. 'Lovelock', based on wide research but written as a fictional diary, was nominated for the 1986 Booker Prize.

Awards

Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 1986.

Author description

The author of more than twenty books and plays, James McNeish has received a number of awards and fellowships. His most recent titles have been Dance of the Peacocks and The Sixth Man.

Table of contents

very good