The Underground Man
MICK JACKSON
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21 reviews (1997) (0p)Visit this book's Amazon.com page >>
| Book Description |
| The Fifth Duke of Portland was known as "The Underground Man". This fictionalized story of the last six months of his life is told through his notebooks and accounts by those who knew him. The Duke built a series of tunnels beneath his home and a series of dumb waiters to carry him around. |
| Amazon.com Review |
| Mick Jackson makes films. It's no surprise, then, that his first novel, The Underground Man, should be so economically told, the action evoking a mise en scène. The novel takes the form of journal entries interspersed with eyewitness accounts from servants and neighbors. The "Underground Man" portrayed in the novel, William John Cavendish Bentinck-Scott, the Duke of Portland and a resident of Nottinghamshire, England, is mightily eccentric; the man was real (1800-1879), as was his eccentricity. Historical fact: the Duke commissioned eight tunnels on his estate. Present-day fact: if you walk the estate today, you see the skylights--2' in diameter and 4" thick. But why did he build them? In the last few days of the Duke's life, eccentricity burgeons; madness follows. The reader learns that his odd view of the world was shaped by early tragedy, the full truth of which is withheld until the last few pages. The Underground Man is that most delectable blend of fact and fiction, one in which the intriguing details of a real life are richly explored through imagination. |
| Mick Jackson Award Stats |
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| *Major Prize = Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, and PEN/Faulkner Award |
