Free Reading High Dive: A Novel by Jonathan Lee

“Devastating . . . Inspired . . . We make so many complex emotional investments in the lives of Lee’s characters that it takes a monk’s restraint not to flip to the very end of the book before you get there.” —Jennifer Senior, New York Times

In September 1984, a bomb was planted at the Grand Hotel in the seaside town of Brighton, England, set to explode in twenty-four days when the British prime minister and her entire cabinet would be staying there. High Dive not only takes us inside this audacious assassination attempt—a decisive act of violence on the world stage—but also imagines its way into a group of unforgettable characters. Nimbly weaving together fact and fiction, comedy and tragedy, the story switches among the perspectives of Dan, a young IRA explosives expert; Moose, a former star athlete gone to seed, who is now the deputy hotel manager; and Freya, his teenage daughter, trying to decide what comes after high school. Over the course of a mere four weeks, as the prime minister’s arrival draws closer, each of their lives will be transformed forever.  

A bold, astonishingly intimate novel of laughter and heartbreak, High Dive is a moving portrait of clashing loyalties, guilt and regret, and how individuals become the grist of history. Read Online Book High Dive: A Novel by Jonathan Lee Full Free

Review :

“A masterly novel . . . Achingly good . . . At his best—and he is at it often—Lee displays a nimble metaphysical wit and a verbal ingenuity on a par with Martin Amis’s.”
—Thomas Mallon, The New Yorker 

“High Dive is a novel so smart and compassionate and beautifully written that it asks for total immersion. A reader will hold her breath for long, perfectly-paced stretches, and she will surface, dizzied, at the end.”
—Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies 

“A beautifully realized novel about the intertwining of loyalty, family, ambition and politics…. Long after the bomb goes off, long after I closed the book, I found myself wondering about Moose and Freya and Dan. That persistence of interest is a testament to how fully realized those characters are, and how astonishingly well executed this novel is....Exquisitely rendered.”
—The Washington Post
“Inspired . . . Lee creates a sympathetic ensemble both at the Grand Hotel and in the streets of Belfast, all while making expert use of the dramatic tension inherent in waiting for a lethal explosion . . . [There’s] a sort of phyllo-dough layering that makes High Dive so rich . . . We make so many complex emotional investments in the lives of Lee’s characters that it takes a monk’s restraint not to flip to the very end of the book before you get there . . . There’s great range and compassion and high-definition imagery in Lee’s writing . . . Devastating.”
—Jennifer Senior, New York Times

“A mongrel blend of political thriller, dark comedy, and pathos  . . . Tolstoy’s sense—of an overpowering momentum of events, in which humans may act but ultimately fade back into insignificance—hovers in a ghostly way around the pages of High Dive . . . Boldly imagine[d].”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Highly amusing and ultimately very moving . . . Lee draws the reader into his characters’ lives with such sympathy and affection that when that inevitable explosion occurs, its impact is all the more devastating.”
 —Wall Street Journal
“A tender story about the hopes and flaws of ordinary people made extraordinary by events . . . Lee keeps the drama taut.”
—New York Times Book Review
 
“Brilliant, urgent, unstoppable . . . An incredible novel of rare insight, velocity, depth, and daring.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred, boxed) 

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