We Think the World of You - Softcover

Ackerley, J. R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140115544 ISBN 13: 9780140115543

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1988

Synopsis

The love between friends, Johnny, young and feckless, and Frank, middle-aged and devoted, and their love for Johnny's beautiful pedigree bitch, Evie. These are the main themes of this novel. Throughout, the dog becomes more and more the creature around which their relationships revolve.

About this title

About the Author:

J.R. Ackerley (1896–1967) was for many years the literary editor of the BBC magazine The Listener. His works include three memoirs, Hindoo Holiday, My Dog Tulip, and My Father and Myself, and a novel, We Think the World of You (all available as New York Review Books).

P.N. Furbank is the author of nine books, including biographies of Samuel Butler, Italo Svevo, and E.M. Forster.

Review:

“The book is both breezy and sad. Ackerley’s books are candid confessions of a good friend, full of small, hilarious surprises.”
—Peter Terzian, Out

“The wife gets to visit the jail. The mother gets to adopt one of the children. The stepfather gets to beat the dog. Is there nothing for the middle-aged gay lover? At first Ackerley’s novel seems to be a comedy about in-laws, and Frank’s indignation to be his only and inadequate weapon against a family that knows and doesn’t know who he is, however willing they are to take his money. But then Frank notices a member of the family as generous and jealous as he is, and as beautiful and as vital as his imprisoned lover. He turns all his malice to the project of freeing the dog, but what he achieves turns out to be darker and stranger than liberation.”
—Caleb Crain

“The writer of this book belongs to that rare and interesting group of writers who contrive, without ever intending to do so, to make an art of their silences. What he does produce is like nothing that has ben written before or since.” --The Times Literary Supplement

“A hugely funny book.” --The Glasgow Herald
“A beautifully and superbly executed novel. . . .Each page seems to glow with what is written between the lines as well as with what is written on them. What a book this is!” --New Statesman

J.R. Ackerley’s We Think the World of You charts an unlikely course of a love affair.... The results are moving and unexpected. The hinge upon which the novel swings—and shuts—is that in matters of the heart, you must be careful what you wish for.
—Open Letters Monthly

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0140115544
• ISBN 13: 9780140115543
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 158