The Song Before It Is Sung

About the Author Justin Cartwright's novels include the Booker-shortlisted In Every Face I Meet, the Whitbread Novel Award-winner Leading the Cheers, the acclaimed White Lightning, shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Novel Award, The Promise of Happiness, selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club and winner of the 2005 Hawthornden Prize, The Song Before It Is Sung, To Heaven By Water, Other People's Money, winner of the Spears novel of the year and, most recently, the acclaimed Lion Heart. Justin Cartwright was born in South Africa and lives in London. Product Description From the Booker Prize nominee and Whitbread Prize winner, a sweeping novel about the nature of human freedom and human passion that received glowing praise in hardcover.On July 20, 1944, Adolf Hitler narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. He found the main conspirators and had them hanged from meat hooks. Axel, Count von Gottberg, was one of those hanged by Hitler. Sixty years later, Conrad Senior, a former student of one of Axel's most trusted friends, is left some of his personal papers and is immediately drawn into a web of jealousy, passion, and betrayal. The more he scrambles to uncover the truth, the more complex he finds the relationship between the two friends.Wonderfully written―and based on true events―The Song Before It is Sung is a novel of profound and sensitive insight into the human condition, surpassing all of Cartwright's previous works in its scope and ambition. Review “Run, don't walk to your local library or bookstore and procure The Song Before It Is Sung. It is excellent….A wonderful, enviable work.” ―Boston Globe“A quiet masterpiece. Cartwright has written that rare thing, a novel of ideas intricately and propulsively plotted, deeply humane, elegantly readable.” ―Los Angeles Times Book Review“A thought-provoking….at times heartbreaking roman-a-clef…” ―The Denver Post“Mr. Cartwright's impressive achievement lies in his ability to penetrate beyond easy moral certitudes, to evoke the recent past and, not least, to make the reader understand just how much was at stake back then.” ―Wall St. Journal“Considered by many to rank up there with Ian McEwan among contemporary British novelists, Cartwright hasn't had a lot of success in the States. His new novel, which details the life of one of the German conspirators sentenced to death for plotting Hitler's assassination, may change that.” ―Time Out Chicago“This tour de force explores the ‘paper-thin divide between idealism and delusion,' while resonating on many levels.” ―Library Journal“…darkly effective….greatly entice readers' interest on political, historical, and intellectual levels.” ―Booklist, Starred review“magnificent….this novel surely places Cartwright in the company of the finest English novelists at work today.” ―Seattle Times“This is a deeply moving and well-researched work from a first-class writer.” ―Washington Times