History The Home Movie

A thoughtful and masterful novel in verse by an innovative 20th-century poet.
 
One of England’s foremost poets, Craig Raine offers a “bold, ambitious chronicle of life” (New York Times Review) told through the stories of two families, the Pasternaks and the Raines, who touch each other and are touched by history in different ways. Like a home movie, this novel in verse masterfully conjures the world in which these families move by re-creating the texture of ordinary and extraordinary life. Blending fact, fiction, and thrilling leaps of imagination, History: The Home Movie promises to be the film you’ll ever read.

“Craig Raine’s History admirably reclaims poetry’s narrative function, its capacity to fictionally propose a world as complex and mysterious as reality itself. A challenging, innovative, and unsettling novel in verse.”—Los Angeles Times

“A sly, surprising, brilliant, and yes, readable book.”—Boston Phoenix

Craig Raine is a poet, lecturer, and critic. He is a fellow of New College, Oxford, the author of several poetry collections and books, and the editor of the journal Areté. He lives in Oxford, England.