The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G B Edwards

The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

by G B Edwards NYRB c/o Guernsey Press Shop

Ebenezer Le Page, cantankerous, opinionated and charming, is one of the most compelling literary creations of the late 20 century. Eighty years old, fiercely independent, Ebenezer has lived his whole life in Guernsey, a stony speck of a place caught between the coasts of France and England yet a world apart from either. He writes of his life and those he has known, stories of family secrets, feuds, love glimpsed and lost, unforgettable friendships and those betrayed.

A beautifully detailed chronicle of a life with the trauma of the 20 century as Ebenezer also recalls both the men lost to the Great War and the German Occupation of Guernsey during World War II and looks with despair at the encroachments of commerce and tourism on his beloved island.

Gerald Basil Edwards (1899-1976) was born in Vale Parish on the Channel Island of Guernsey and lived there until joining the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry in 1917. By the late 1920s he was living in London where he taught literature and drama and became acquainted with J S Collis, Stephen Porter and Middleton Murry who recruited him to write The Adelphi. All considered him a genius and he was expected to become the next D H Lawrence. He later retired to Dorset, where in 1972 he met Edward Chaney, who encouraged him to complete this book. It has been hailed a great novel in England and America and has since been published in French and Italian.