The Tragedy of Arthur

The Tragedy of Arthur is an emotional and elaborately constructed tour de force from bestselling and critically acclaimed novelist Arthur Phillips, #x1C;one of the best writers in America#x1D; ( The Washington Post) . Its doomed hero is Arthur Phillips, a young man struggling with a larger-than-life father, a con artist who works wonders of deception but is a most unreliable parent. Arthur is raised in an enchanted world of smoke and mirrors where the only unshifting truth is his father#x19;s and his beloved twin sister#x19;s deep and abiding love for the works of William Shakespeare-a love so pervasive that Arthur becomes a writer in a misguided bid for their approval and affection. Years later, Arthur#x19;s father, imprisoned for decades and nearing the end of his life, shares with Arthur a treasure he#x19;s kept secret for half a century: a previously unknown play by Shakespeare, titled The Tragedy of Arthur. But Arthur and his sister also inherit their father#x19;s mission: to see the play published and acknowledged as the Bard#x19;s last great gift to humanity. . . . Unless it#x19;s their father#x19;s last great con. By turns hilarious and haunting, this virtuosic novel-which includes Shakespeare#x19;s (?) lost King Arthur play in its five-act entirety-captures the very essence of romantic and familial love and betrayal. The Tragedy of Arthur explores the tension between storytelling and truth-telling, the thirst for originality in all our lives, and the act of literary mythmaking, both now and four centuries ago, as the two Arthurs-Arthur the novelist and Arthur the ancient king-play out their individual but strangely intertwined fates.