Under the Eye of the Clock (Picador Books) - Softcover

Christopher Nolan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330314610 ISBN 13: 9780330314619

Publisher: Picador, 1990

Synopsis

Christopher Nolan’s injuries at birth left him severely disabled and handicapped; he was entirely paralyzed and unable to communicate, but he had so much to say and was burning to express his innermost thoughts and ideas and share them with the world.

Nolan’s autobiography told in the third person through a narrator named Joseph Meehan is an astonishingly lyrical and inspired work, filled with powerful description and touching moments of triumph, sadness, anger, and above all disarming wit. Nolan’s story has a touching and breathtaking intensity, whether recounting his battle with local authorities to attend an ordinary school, going on a “normal” vacation, or his ultimate triumph of finally being able to share the insight and whimsy of his inner world.

Filled with linguistic puzzles, this bestseller in Britain and the United States and Whitbread Prize winner features a unique voice that comes from a deep place many will never understand, but that is enrapturing nevertheless.

About this title

Review:

A remarkable work by several measures, Under the Eye of the Clock is the autobiography--told slyly through a third person alter-ego--of Christopher Nolan, struck at birth with brain damage and left paralyzed, spastic and mute. His first book, Dam-Burst of Dreams, written when he was a teen, was a collection of poems that exploded with linguistic virtuosity, earning him comparisons to Joyce and Yeats. Nolan, whose disability requires that someone cup his chin while he pushes a head-mounted pointer at the keyboard, tells here of battles in an un-handicapped world, the heroic efforts of his family and the sights of Ireland that surround him. The book won England's Whitbread prize.

About the Author:

Christopher Nolan was deprived of oxygen for two hours at birth, and was mute and paralyzed as a result. He wrote by having someone hold his head while he tapped at a typewriter with a stick attached to his forehead—his “unicorn stick.” It took him twelve years and a half-million strokes to write this remarkable novel. He died in 2009.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0330314610
• ISBN 13: 9780330314619
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208