Three Bridges — James Wilson

Neverland Publishing is pleased to introduce Three Bridges, the debut novel by James Wilson. Obliquely charting the fallout and fragmentation of relationships and friendships, over an indefinite span of years, Three Bridges is a story of love, loss and the haunting power of memory. The narrative of three chance encounters -- each one connected to one of London's historic bridges -- is funneled unremittingly through the voice of a nameless narrator who seems bent on self-effacement, but who can only succeed in pervading all that is relayed. Three Bridges is a novel that explores the power, manipulation and deceit inherent in the very act of narration itself. Wilson's meditative, elegiacal prose reveals London as a palimpsest, and he displays a deep knowledge of and fondness for the city that forms the novel's backdrop -- it is not without reason that Tears in the Fence have described Wilson as ‘an inheritor of the qualities of Iain Sinclair'. Wilson tips his hat to the evident influence of another great master of prose fiction, W G Sebald, in numerous ways (most notably in his inclusion of uncaptioned photos in the text), but he emerges as an original and powerful voice in his own right. Three Bridges is a slender book, but one that is weighted with gravity and a tugging wistful resonance.