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The Fearsome Particles
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The Fearsome Particles Hardback - 2006

by Trevor Cole

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Reader reviews for The Fearsome Particles

From the publisher

Trevor Cole’s first novel, Norman Bray In the Performance of His Life, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, a regional finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The novel was serialized on CBC Radio and optioned for film. Trevor Cole is also a multiple-award-winning magazine journalist. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

Details

  • Title The Fearsome Particles
  • Author Trevor Cole
  • Binding Hardback
  • Edition First Edition
  • Pages 342
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, ON, Canada
  • Publication date August 29, 2006
  • ISBN 9780771022609 / 0771022603
  • Category Fiction - General
  • Dewey Decimal Code 813.6

Excerpt

1

An animal that small, that dextrous, could be anywhere. An animal that silent. There was no defining its limits. What troubled Gerald was not the threat of the threat per se, but his sense of helplessness in the face of it.

In his imagination, in those thoughts that lay just beyond his control, the cat he called Rumsfeld was stalking him. It was an absurd idea, but as he stood in his slippers at the foot of the bed, with the new light of April stealing across a floor of cinnamon cabreuva, Gerald could not quite reach the absurdity and smother it. So he was forced, in the sense that addicts are forced by their addictions, or invalids by their infirmities, to picture the cat mincing through the cavities and recesses (what interior design people liked to call “dead spaces”) of the sprawling turreted house on Breere Crescent. He was obliged to see in his mind’s eye its white whiskery face peering around the pants press and shoe trees of his closet, looking more resolute, more purposeful, than a cat’s face should be capable of looking. He was compelled to imagine it — ludicrous as it might sound to the great majority of people who ­weren’t him and ­didn’t live at 93 Breere — planning.

All Gerald Woodlore could do, and so did with conviction, was curse himself for thinking about the cat. Because this was not the time to be getting cat-­fixated; this morning there were other things of far greater importance to be addressing, mentally. His son, Kyle, was returning home from a hostile territory with an uncertain injury. His wife, Vicki, was edging toward madness. Work entailed its own many, many challenges. For these reasons there was no force in the world worthier of invocation, in Gerald’s view, than the will to ignore the cat’s presence in their lives. And if there had been a way to call forth the will, and impose it on his thoughts the way he imposed plastic wrap on a freshly lopped lemon, to keep its spiky lemoniness contained, of course he would have. But Gerald had to acknowledge, unhappily, that he ­wasn’t built to ignore sneaking threats to normalcy, to order, to the way things were supposed to be. He was much too conscious; he was conscious to the point of affliction. And so to him, the black-­and-­white cat, which a neighbour named Lorie Campeau had brought to the door in a wild panic three weeks before —

LORIE CAMPEAU: It’s my mother. They’ve taken her to the hospital. She fell. She lives in Vancouver and she fell! So I have to fly there today, and of course I have to take my daughter, Jewels. But we just got her this cat. Literally just got it. And we ­can’t give it back because Jewels is completely in love. And I ­don’t know what to do. We haven’t even named it!

— the cat that Vicki had taken in without consultation though he, Gerald, was in the nearby den, listening and perfectly consultable, was a threat. It was a rogue presence. It was their own small, fluffy insurgency.

Media reviews

“Trevor Cole has written an Ordinary People for the 21st century.”
Maclean’s

“Cole’s writing is reminiscent of that of Carol Shields: he can be hilariously funny and profoundly serious at the same time. . . . He not only cares about what’s right in front of him, he makes his readers care too.”
Montreal Gazette

“Impressive — funny, absorbing. . . . beautifully authentic.”
Winnipeg Free Press

The Fearsome Particles is a workplace comedy enveloped by human tragedy, a sympathetic study of postwar trauma played to the laugh track of finely observed farce. . . . Pitch-perfect.”
— John Allemang

“Humour that comes froma deeper, more satisfying place . . . . The book soars.” — Quill & Quire

“The novel is well-plotted, smart and perceptive, and very funny much in the same way that Kingsley Amis’s mature work was darkly humorous even at its most mordant . . . . Cole is one of the best young novelists in this country.”
Globe and Mail

“With writing like this, Trevor Cole is quickly gaining a reputation as a major talent, deservedly so.”
Edmonton Journal

“Trevor Cole is emerging as a master of obsessive-delusional-neurotic-tragicomic fiction. His two novels, Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life (which was shortlisted for a 2004 Governor General's Award for Fiction) and his latest, The Fearsome Particles, both told from the points of view of obsessive and delusional people, are distressing and sometimes cringe-making funny, their humour akin to that of David Brent trying to assert his power in the BBC TV series The Office. Cole's skill at evoking this humour suggests that he himself is quiveringly attuned to the tiny shudders–say, an inexplicable bid in a game of cards–that suggest the life-threatening fault lines in people's lives. And Cole's prose is so confident, compassionate and clear that it draws out that neurotic admission: I wish I'd written that.”
Literary Review of Canada

"Good writing declares itself immediately. How comforting for a reader to know — after only a few pages in Mr. Cole's company — that he is in such safe hands."
—Governor General’s Award winner David Gilmour

"Cole belongs to the Truman Capote school of stylists; his prose is clear as a mountain stream."
Toronto Star

"Trevor Cole knows how to tell a story of the I-couldn’t-put-it-down variety. . . . Just delicious!"
Globe and Mail

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The Fearsome Particles

The Fearsome Particles

by Trevor Cole

  • Used
  • as new
  • Hardback
  • Signed
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Edition
First edition, first printing
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Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780771022609 / 0771022603
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The Fearsome Particles
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The Fearsome Particles

by Cole, Trevor

  • Used
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Edition
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Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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Toronto, Ontario, Canada: McClelland & Stewart, 2006. Light soil to outer edges and light creasing from page handling. DJ has light edge/rub wear and light creasing. Actual book for sale pictured. 15.3 x 22 x 2.7cm, wt750g. First Edition. Hard Cover. VG/VG. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.
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The Fearsome Particles
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The Fearsome Particles

by Cole, Trevor

  • Used
  • Fine
  • Hardback
  • first
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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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McClelland & Stewart, 2006. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. pp.342 clean tight copy with slight wear to top edges of d/j
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The Fearsome Particles
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The Fearsome Particles

by Cole, Trevor

  • Used
  • Hardback
  • first
Condition
Fine in Fine dust jacket
Edition
First Edition; First Printing
Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780771022609 / 0771022603
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Description:
McClelland & Stewart. Fine in Fine dust jacket. 2006. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. 0771022603 . A Good Read ships from Toronto and Niagara Falls, NY - customers outside of North America please allow two to three weeks for delivery. ; 1.18 x 8.5 x 5.91 Inches; 352 pages .
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The Fearsome Particles (signed)
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The Fearsome Particles (signed)

by Cole, Trevor

  • Used
  • Fine
  • Hardback
  • Signed
  • first
Condition
Excellent
Edition
First Edition
Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780771022609 / 0771022603
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Description:
Toronto, ON, Canada: McClelland & Stewart, 2006. First Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Very Good Plus. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. First printing. Signed by author on title page. Hint of bumping to heel of spine, else fine. DJ lightly wrinkled at head of spine, lightly creased along spine, faint mark (1/4 inch) on front, else very good plus. Protected in mylar.
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The Fearsome Particles (signed)
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The Fearsome Particles (signed)

by Cole, Trevor

  • Used
  • Fine
  • Hardback
  • Signed
  • first
Condition
Excellent
Edition
First Edition
Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780771022609 / 0771022603
Quantity available
1
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Toronto, ON, Canada: McClelland & Stewart, 2006. First Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. First printing. Signed by author on title page. Hint of bumping to heel of spine, else fine. DJ lightly wrinkled at head of spine and tops of flap folds, else near fine. Protected in mylar.
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The Fearsome Particles
Stock photo: cover may vary

The Fearsome Particles

by Cole, Trevor

  • Used
  • Hardback
  • first
Condition
Fine in Fine dust jacket
Edition
First Edition; First Printing
Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780771022609 / 0771022603
Quantity available
1
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Description:
Toronto, ON, Canada: McClelland & Stewart. Fine in Fine dust jacket. 2006. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. 0771022603 . A Good Read ships from Toronto and Niagara Falls, NY - customers outside of North America please allow two to three weeks for delivery. ; Promotional materials from publisher laid in. ; 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" Tall .
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The Fearsome Particles
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The Fearsome Particles

by Cole, Trevor

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  • Hardback
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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780771022609 / 0771022603
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hardcover. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book.
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The Fearsome Particles  ** SIGNED **
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The Fearsome Particles ** SIGNED **

by Cole, Trevor

  • Used
  • Near Fine
  • Hardback
  • Signed
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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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Toronto, ON, Canada: McClelland & Stewart, 2006. True First Edition, 1st Printing 1st Printing. Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. The Woodlore family is trying its best to navigate in increasingly stormy seas. 342 pp. Number line: 1 2 3 4 5 10 09 08 07 06. Book has very slightly rubbed tail of spine as well as lightly bumped top corners, ow book is as new. Unclipped ($ 32.99) DJ has matching top corners and some edge wear. PRESENTATION: " To Lynn & Lars I hope you enjoy getting to know the Woodlores. All the best. [signature]" SIGNED by author. Bookseller's Inventory # 133344.
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