"Superbly written, with not a superfluous word, and enriched with wonderfully vivid images" - Murrough O'Brien, The Independent on Sunday "A finely observed account of pubescent yearnings, which succeeds on every level" - Ross Gilfillan, The Daily Mail "A very enjoyable book... completely convincing, utterly real... I thought it was a cracking book, a really enjoyable read, and a proper psychological thriller" - Joel Morris, Book Panel, BBC Radio 5 Live “Intelligent and beautifully written” - Jessica Mann, Literary Review "Gregory Norminton writes better than anyone about that age when emotions are everything and the most minor events are experienced with a studied gravity. His prose, elegant, precise and astonishingly fluid, registers every heartbeat, capturing with a discreet English irony the complexity of beings. Intelligent, devastating, edifying, this novel has, from the first page, all the makings of a classic" - Jeanne de Menibus, Le Journal du Dimanche "It is rare enough to find a successful conflation of the personal and the political but to articulate immense issues such as environmental depredation, the culture of narrow self-interest and the mendacity of power within a story that stays anchored to its plot and characters without falling into tub-thumping is astonishing... Structured like a thriller, Serious Things is about nothing short of the slow death of the soul and its eventual redemption. Although sodden with a peculiarly English melancholy, it manages to refract Lord of the Flies at times, The Secret History at others, even cast a glance at Dead Poets Society. Norminton's measured, elegant prose makes beauty and menace sing in perfect harmony.The book is worth reading for his writing on the English countryside alone, while his scaling of the treacherous cliffs of the human heart will take your breath away." - Neel Mukherjee, The Sunday Telegraph "To find a homegrown, completely absorbing contemporary novel of a high literary standard seems pretty impossible these days. Gregory Norminton's SERIOUS THINGS which came out in paperback this year got fine reviews but still not the attention a work of such quality merits. Here's a writer who relishes every sentence, and gives it moral weight, and yet still manages to come up with a page-turner." - Lesley Chamberlain, Prospect My fourth novel, SERIOUS THINGS, is now in the shops. "In the early 1990s, at a boarding school still redolent of the days of Empire, two boys form an intense friendship that will shape the course of their lives. Bruno Jackson, the shy and lonely son of British expats, is infatuated by Anthony Blunden, a glamorous, troubling boy who seems to have everything. Taken under the wing of an idealistic English teacher, the boys are encouraged to explore the 'more serious things' of life beyond college. But in the hothouse of the school, an imagined slight from their mentor seems of earth-shattering importance, and Bruno soon finds himself caught up in his friend's fantasies of revenge. Years later, with the memories of that time almost forgotten, Bruno leads a blameless, uneventful life. The sudden reappearance of Anthony forces him to revisit and re-assess his past - and to decide how far he's prepared to go to assuage his conscience. "Lyrical, immersive and generously peopled, SERIOUS THINGS is a tragedy of failed connections and good intentions gone awry. It is about our troubled planet and our responsibilities towards it. It is about the pathology of guilt and how far one might have to go in order to escape." So much for the blurb. Here's the start of a chapter: They were serving tea on the lawn of Hereward House. It was meant to seem a cosy affair of white linen under apple boughs, with parents chatting and younger siblings chasing each other among the laurel bushes. I stood beside my mother, dumb with the pain of our impending separation, and watched as girls from the village disguised as maids passed with cucumber and egg sandwiches. Teachers were in attendance with their perfumed wives. I looked at the soft foliage of the Downs. 'Ah, Mrs Jackson. Philip Sedley: we spoke on the phone. And this is Bruno�' The housemaster of the Hereward, though quite young, was prematurely balding. He strained to keep his wife's arm as she tugged at their border collie. 'We no longer get so many boys from abroad. Army cutbacks, you know. And when we lose Hong Kong...' He looked at me and spoke as one board member might to another. 'I hope you like it here, Bruno. We�ll make a temperate fellow of you yet.' My mother simpered, I nodded, and the Sedleys drifted on to more substantial fare. The boys with whom I was to share my life stood sullen as prize-fighters between their parents, enduring for a moment longer the partings in their hair and the fastidious rectitude of their ties. Under the smiles of adults, we sized each other up. I would learn my fellow inmates' names soon enough, and get to know their qualities. Only Laurence Nevins wore his nature in his face. While most of us were still children he was already pustular, a warning of transformations to come, with beard fluff begging to be trimmed above a minefield of acne and eyewhites the colour of curdled milk. Aside from Nevins, it was impossible in that garden to foretell who would be friend and who would be foe. There was plump, genial-looking Robbie Thwaite. There was Hugo Barclay, set to board even though his parents' farm was only a short car journey from the school, and Dan Chapman, a sportsman bound almost genetically to become, after I had left Kingsley in secret disgrace, the Head of House. Dull-witted but affable boys like John Toplady and Nigel Clare had yet to reveal their qualities. I did not know that Charlie Stoddard was rich and stupid, the future brawn to Nevins's cunning, or that in his weary eyes was the mark of our common doom: wanker's lethargy. Over by the tennis courts, another reception was under way. Its parents and boys, teacups and orange squash, were divided from ours by a vegetable patch and soft-fruit frames. My mother was nodding and blinking at a brash couple who were 'strongly in favour' of Mrs Thatcher's poll tax, and to keep down the bile of fear in my throat I scanned the distant party. Did my eyes fasten at once on Anthony? Among a dozen uniformed boys he stood out on account of his height and the straightness of his bearing. A large and garrulous family surrounded him. There were two pretty sisters, both parents, an avuncular-looking gentleman with hair that curled in a ducktail behind his ears, and two grandmothers rummaging in their purses for a farewell donation. The boy seemed unembarrassed by all this attention, while I shrank each time my mother touched my shoulder. It was his good fortune that struck me hardest; I think I half hated my parents at the time for sending me away. This other boy, with his adoring clan, would be home on Sunday afternoons. I pictured him strolling on a wide English lawn or yelling at the top of his voice as he rode a BMX bike. A gust of laughter swept through the family and the father tousled his son's head. Anthony's eyes coasted on the merriment, then brushed my gaze across the length of the garden. I looked away, gnawing fruitcake to conceal my fluster, and realised with alarm that the sandwich trays had emptied and the tables were being cleared around us. Boys and their parents were making their way, in stately calm, around the side of Hereward House. The welcoming party was coming to an end and an air of desperation came over my mother. 'You've got that letter paper Auntie Nariza bought you. I'll write to you every week. Mr Sedley says you're welcome to use the telephone in his part of the house - at weekends - to receive our call. Don't forget to keep your laundry bag closed, it's only considerate.' The instructions and assurances continued as the garden emptied. We were shepherded by Mrs Sedley and her collie to the front of the House, where bluffly and with seeming ease other parents took leave of their sons. The boys waved bravely. Cars started up on the gravel drive. Mr Houghton, the undertutor, had promised my mother a lift to the airport, and he waited for her in his Peugeot - this gross, redheaded suitor - while she clutched me under the chestnut trees. I wanted her gone; I felt sick with apprehension, like that time we waited to cross the storm-shaken Malacca Straits. My mother planted a kiss on my cheek. I could smell her powdery, rose-tinted perfume and the under-odour of perspiration. 'Be brave for me, Bruno,' she said, and waved over my head at the Sedleys waiting with their adopted brood under the redbrick porch. All the boys were watching us. I placed a shameful, surreptitious fist in my mother's belly to push her towards the car. Then I was running, hand on my cap, my face burning for want of quenching tears, to Hereward House and my new life. Copyright Gregory Norminton 2007