A disarming, lyrical hybrid of fiction and autobiography, this forgotten masterpiece of postwar English fiction follows a small boy through his First World War childhood and teenage years on the Kentish coast, then into the army and frontline service in the Second World War. Obsessed by his strange twin passions for orchids and for fireworks, the authornarrator paints a haunting portrait of a childhood and adulthood interleaved with one another in a nearmystical rural idyll. Defined by his unspoken homosexuality, the books capture the unfolding of a melancholy, often painfully sensitive male consciousness.First published in the late 1940s as three separate but interlinked volumes "The Military Orchid" "A Mine of Serpents" and "The Goose Cathedral" The Orchid Trilogy conjures up a rapturous, fantastical portrait of England at war and peace in the 20th century. Witty, subtle and deceptively simple, this unjustly neglected classic that has yet to be surpassed in its exploration of the magical world of childhood.One of those toorare books whose enjoyability makes it seem too short Elizabeth BowenIt is a kind of collage of sharply drawn bits of real life, excellently described and artistically arranged Stephen SpenderReminiscence and reflection and description are woven together to make a curious and fascinating tapestry David CecilMr. Brookes finely shaped prose, his wit, percipience, and liveliness in the description of people, places, and states of mind are a rare delight...

Binding: Paperback;456 pages; Publisher: Pan Macmillan; Classification: FC; Weight: 646 g; Dimensions: 134 x 202 x 35

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