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Staircase C
A first novel, with a haunting French flavour, Staircase C is on the one hand a beautiful and convincing love story, and on the other a highly entertaining picture of people who conduct their lives, loves and friendships out loud, with no holds barred.
In a Greenwich Village apartment block, on Staircase C, lives Foster Tuncurry -- art critic and self-styled 'cynic, misanthrope and misogynist'. Good-looking and arrogant, Foster has made himself notorious in the gossipy New York art-world for his anti-social stance and his savage reviews.
Staircase C is also home to a family of lively tenants; to a pair of lovers who entertain their neighbours with uninhibited domestic rows; to the charming bu ne'er-do-well Bruce Conway, who borrows money off all and sundry; and to Colin Shepherd, a homosexual fashion-designer who has fallen painfully in love with Foster. And in the human melting pot of this closed community, it is the suicide of Mrs Bernahrdt, from the top landing, which brings Foster to his own boiling point. Obsessed by her death and buffeted by the tidal waves of a secret inner turmoil, he reacts with jealousy to the arrival of a new tenant -- the intrusive Sharon Dowd, and her precocious five-year-old daughter, Anita.
As storms erupt and passions fly, Foster Tuncurry faces the struggle to retain his sanity against a background that reflects his own chaos. Ahead lies the road to recovery, to a new life and to love, and placed along the way in the form of his latest artistic 'discovery' is one of the most important stepping stones.
Elvire Murail enjoyed great success in France with the publication of Staircase C, which is her first novel and was the winnder of the Prix du Premier Roman in 1983. Born in 1958, she is a Parisian and a graduate of Cambridge University.
In a Greenwich Village apartment block, on Staircase C, lives Foster Tuncurry -- art critic and self-styled 'cynic, misanthrope and misogynist'. Good-looking and arrogant, Foster has made himself notorious in the gossipy New York art-world for his anti-social stance and his savage reviews.
Staircase C is also home to a family of lively tenants; to a pair of lovers who entertain their neighbours with uninhibited domestic rows; to the charming bu ne'er-do-well Bruce Conway, who borrows money off all and sundry; and to Colin Shepherd, a homosexual fashion-designer who has fallen painfully in love with Foster. And in the human melting pot of this closed community, it is the suicide of Mrs Bernahrdt, from the top landing, which brings Foster to his own boiling point. Obsessed by her death and buffeted by the tidal waves of a secret inner turmoil, he reacts with jealousy to the arrival of a new tenant -- the intrusive Sharon Dowd, and her precocious five-year-old daughter, Anita.
As storms erupt and passions fly, Foster Tuncurry faces the struggle to retain his sanity against a background that reflects his own chaos. Ahead lies the road to recovery, to a new life and to love, and placed along the way in the form of his latest artistic 'discovery' is one of the most important stepping stones.
Elvire Murail enjoyed great success in France with the publication of Staircase C, which is her first novel and was the winnder of the Prix du Premier Roman in 1983. Born in 1958, she is a Parisian and a graduate of Cambridge University.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
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