Five Leaves Publications

Book details

In 1942, an unseaworthy ship crammed with refugees bound for Palestine sinks, the result of British and Turkish officialdom. Jacob Lindmann, one of only two survivors, becomes the central character in this haunting novel.

Twenty years on Lindmann lives in a ramshackle boarding house. He remains detached from his surroundings and past until circumstances combine to shatter his personality. The resulting shock touches the other characters in the book, but, most profoundly, the stunned and disturbed reader. Raphael's novel dramatises universal themes of guilt, responsibility and love.

"This is an uncomfortable novel with plenty to say, a violent sting in the tale, and individual vision, and the hectic style of a man whose concerns, passions and humours are almost more than the language can bear." - Sunday Times

"More impressive than any (novel) I have read for a long time"
- The Guardian

"Arresting, disturbing and impressive" - Spectator

"...Lindmann is on a grand scale. It is frank, almost brutal, in its probing into human motives." - Daily Telegraph

“Exciting… powerful… vivid!" - Times Literary Supplement

"A very ambitious novel indeed... his prose fairly crackles with energy" - New Statesman

About the Author

Frederic Raphael has been publishing novels since 1956. His best known novel is Glittering Prizes. His memoirs include A Spoilt Boy, non-fiction includes Some Talk of Alexander. Raphael was the screenwriter for Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and is a regular contributor to the broadsheet press Lindmann includes a new introduction by Neal Sokol, a writer for the American Forward.