The Vagabond King: A Coming of Age Story (Free Kindle Book)
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Title : The Vagabond King: A Coming of Age Story Author : James Campion Conway Price : Free from today till 12/10 Rating : 4.1 out of 5.0(15)  |
| When his mother dies and he discovers the man he believed was his father is not, sixteen year old Chris is haunted by a mysterious apparition that forces him to question his pampered existence and embark upon a quest to find himself. Hoping she will “make a man of him”, he seeks sanctuary in the home of Magda, a middle aged waitress with a penchant for sex, only to discover she lives with her father, a cigarette smoking, beer swilling immigrant.
Chris hates his shabby new surroundings at the end of the street and the shabby old man at the end of his life who spends his days listening to old blues records and making Chris fetch him fresh cans of beer. But, when the old man tells tales of Communist Hungary, torture, escape and the mysterious medallion he wears, Chris learns that, like the old man’s skipping records, history repeats itself and the roles we play have been played many times before. Great read Absorbing contemporary fiction There were times I had to put the book down and simply reflect on how talented this author is. A beautiful coming of age story A captivating story, beautifully told… … will probably be a classic. AUTHOR INTERVIEW What inspired you to write The Vagabond King? Man’s search for meaning has been a central theme of my life. So, Chris’s search for meaning mirrors my own metaphysical meditations. Portraying an adolescent boy’s struggle with his adolescent spirituality was just a great vehicle for me to figure things out in my own struggle to develop a spirituality without religion. Why did you portray a type of older woman younger man relationship in the novel? Let’s face it, a novel about an adolescent boy’s metaphysical meditations is pretty boring. Consequently I developed the character of Mick who introduces elements of suspense and violence through his stories about Communist Hungary. There also needed to be a love interest and, because The Vagabond King is about the dualistic nature of reality, I made her an older woman. So we’ve got the old man, Mick, guiding the adolescent boy into manhood. Then you’ve got Magda, the older woman, and the object of an adolescent boy’s desire. So that’s where the elements of the older woman younger man relationship came in. Why did you use a musical style of writing in The Vagabond King? The central theme of this novel is man’s search for meaning. At the beginning of the novel Chris has lost faith in everything he has believed because it has proven itself to be a lie or is completely superficial and unsatisfying. So he’s left to develop his own adolescent spirituality and, in a materialistic world, it must, consequently, be a spirituality without religion. So the book portrays man’s search for meaning in a world that is essentially unspiritual. Now, portraying spirituality without religion is a challenge, so I needed to give the book a mystical quality while keeping it firmly rooted in the realty of the everyday world. That’s where the lyricism of the prose comes in. Because rituals use music to elevate the ritual from the ordinary world, I used imagery from the myths of ancient Mesopotamia and gave the prose a musical quality to it. Who is the ideal audience for The Vagabond King? The obvious answer might be adolescent boys because of the older woman younger man relationship. But, I think anyone who is interested in coming of age novels or man’s search for meaning and developing a sense of spirituality without religion in a materialistic world would find it interesting. The book’s best reviews actually came from grown men and adolescent girls.
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