After celebrated author Jasper Gwyn suddenly and publicly announces that he will never write another book, he embarks on a strange new career path as a "copyist", holding thirty-day sittings in a meticulously appointed room and producing, at the end, brief but profoundly rich portraits in prose. The surprising, beautiful, and even frightening results are received with rapture by their subjects. Then Gwyn disappears, leaving behind only a short note to his assistant — and the portraits.
As Rebecca, Gwyn's devoted assistant, studies his words, she realizes that the mystery is larger than the simple fact of Gwyn's whereabouts, and she begins to unravel a lifetime's worth of clues left by a man who saw so much but said so little, a man whose solitude masked a heart as hungry as hers.
This week's book is Alessandro Baricco's Mr Gwyn.
We'll be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury.
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