In the Company of Angels, Thomas E. Kennedy

"A luminous love story and an internationally acclaimed masterpiece"

Thomas E. Kennedy's latest novel, In the Company of Angels will be published by Bloomsbury USA & UK in April 2010. Angels has already had a starred review in Publisher's Weekly. Kirkus says Kennedy "offers two exquisitely crafted characters a chance to explore the legacy of inhumanity and to enact a drama of resilience—redemption, even." Library Journal VERDICT: [Kennedy's] " ... work may be new to U.S. readers, but it merits greater attention ... a great choice for readers of literary fiction." South Carolina Review says Kennedy's Angels is "a masterpiece." The novel can be preordered on Amazon.com.

John Updike

Perigee's newest contributing editor, Thomas E. Kennedy, reflects on John Updike's philosophy, his generous nature, and the distant friendship they began to foster in 2000.

"I had met him once before, at a conference in the Netherlands, but doubted that he would remember me. I sidled up, cradling my glass of red wine close to my chest to avoid mishaps, in the hope of getting close enough to make my face visible to this great writer whose work had been a model of style for me since I was a teenager. As I penetrated the second tier of the ring of people around him, I became dazzled by the man's aura—his stature, his bearing, his powerful smile, his great mane of silver hair."

Read the entire essay by clicking here.
 

Acquisition Announcement!

Anton Mueller of Bloomsbury USA is pleased to announce the acquisition of In the Company of Angels by Thomas E. Kennedy, one of four books comprising Kennedy's Copenhagen Quartet. Although Kennedy's novels are internationally acclaimed, his work has gone unnoticed by major US publishers until now. In the Company of Angels was a 2007 winner of the Eric Hoffer Award for books from independent publishers, the judges writing that "why this was not one of the most widely read novels of 2004 is a mystery…It should be picked up immediately."

The Copenhagen Quartet comprises four independent novels, set in different seasons in the Danish capital city. In the Company of Angels is set in summer, focusing on two damaged characters struggling to heal and regain normalcy: Bernardo Greene has survived torture at the hands of Pinochet's henchmen in Chile; Michela Ibsen has escaped a violently abusive husband. During Denmark's long summer nights, their relationship unfolds as a testament to the resilience and complexity of the human heart.

2008 Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Diaz praises the novel highly: "Thomas E. Kennedy is an astonishment, and In the Company of Angels is as elegant as it is beautiful, as important as it profound. A marvel of a read." And Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog, writes: "With generous and elegant prose, Kennedy takes us from the darkest, most violent regions of our collective behavior to our most exalted: our enduring hope for something higher, our need to forgive and be forgiven, our human hunger to love and be loved. [This is] a deeply stirring novel, suffused with intelligence, grace, and that rarest of qualities—written or otherwise—wisdom."

Bloomsbury is committed to bringing Kennedy's complete body of work—including novels, short stories, and essays—to a larger audience. In the Company of Angels will be published simultaneously by Bloomsbury USA and Bloomsbury UK in Winter 2010. A second novel from the Copenhagen Quartet will follow in Winter 2011.