The War Zone: 20th Anniversary Edition

The War Zone: 20th Anniversary Edition

Compared by Time Out magazine to a contemporary Catcher in the Rye, Alexander Stuart's The War Zone was chosen as Best Novel of the Year for Britain's prestigious Whitbread Prize when it was first published, but was instantly stripped of the award amid controversy among the judges, due to the novel's stark and uncompromising portrayal of incest and adolescent fury, when its teenage narrator, Tom, stumbles upon a complex and intensely abusive relationship between his older sister, Jessie, and their father. The novel has been published in eight languages and was turned into a searingly emotional film directed by Oscar-nominated actor/director, Tim Roth, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to win international critical acclaim and many awards. This newly revised 20th Anniversary Edition includes an Afterword by Tim Roth, explaining what drew him to this controversial and painful subject matter for his directorial debut, together with both the original British and American opening chapters of the book, and Alexander Stuart's diary of the making of the film. "From the novel's first scene, the material is explosive. Mr. Stuart has written screenplays...the film training serves him well here, both in the novel's skilled pacing and in the cinematic precision of the description. His Devon, `full of premeditated, parceled country charm,' makes an ideal setting for this story. During a fight between Tom and his father in the backyard, Tom observes `the wrecked barbecue and the smashed table on the lawn like a still life in some crisp, arty photograph.' Mr. Stuart often stops to linger on such images; they help to make The War Zone memorable." - The New York Times --New York Times Comparing the book to A Clockwork Orange: "Alexander Stuart's The War Zone does for Britain now something of what Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange did a quarter of a century ago. It is several steps further into the nightmare... The emblematic shock in Orange was its gratuitous violence. In The War Zone, it is incest." - Los Angeles Times --Los Angeles Times