Novels
Quarrington's novels are characterized by their humour (King Leary received the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour in 1988) although they address serious subjects. His protagonists are largely emotionally crippled antiheroes who have withdrawn from society; typically, in Quarrington's work, an agent of some sort — a young woman in Whale Music, ghosts in King Leary, a hurricane in Galveston — challenges the protagonist's carefully ordered life and draws them back into the fold of humanity.
His novel The Ravine was published in March 2008. At the time of his death, Quarrington had completed a short film adaptation of the work (Pavane, 2008) and was collaborating on a television series adaptation of that novel, which he claimed to be semi-autobiographical. "It's about a writer who squanders his talents in television, drinks too much, screws around and ruins his marriage," Quarrington has said. "The reason it's 'semi-autobiographical' is the guy's name is 'Phil.'"
Read more about this topic: Paul Quarrington
Famous quotes containing the word novels:
“Society is the stage on which manners are shown; novels are the literature. Novels are the journal or record of manners; and the new importance of these books derives from the fact, that the novelist begins to penetrate the surface, and treat this part of life more worthily.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Every reader of the Dreiser novels must cherish astounding specimens—of awkward, platitudinous marginalia, of whole scenes spoiled by bad writing, of phrases as brackish as so many lumps of sodium hyposulphite.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own orthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.”
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