RICHARD MASON / History of a Pleasure Seeker
From the acclaimed author of The Drowning People (“A
literary sensation” —The New York Times Book Review) and Natural
Elements (“A magnum opus” —The New Yorker), HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER is an 
opulent, romantic coming-of-age
drama set at the height of Europe’s belle époque, written in the grand
tradition with a lightness of touch that is wholly modern and original.
Richard Mason’s tale opens in Amsterdam at the
turn of the last century, moves to New York at
the time of the 1907 financial crisis and proceeds onboard a luxury liner
headed for Cape Town.
It is about a young man—Piet Barol—with an instinctive appreciation for
pleasure and a gift for finding it. Piet’s father is an austere administrator
at Holland’s
oldest university. His mother, a singing teacher, has died—but not before
giving him a thorough grounding in the arts of charm.
Piet applies for a job as tutor to the troubled son of Europe’s leading
hotelier: a child who refuses to leave his family’s mansion on Amsterdam’s grandest canal. As the young man
enters this glittering world, he learns its secrets—and soon, quietly,
steadily, finds his life transformed as he in turn transforms the lives of
those around him.
History of a Pleasure Seeker
is a
brilliantly written portrait of the senses, a novel about pleasure and those
who are in search of it; those who embrace it, luxuriate in it, need it; and
those who deprive themselves of it as they do those they love. It is a book
that will beguile and transport you—to another world, another time, another
state of being.
If Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Mann’s Buddenbrooks, Miller’s Tropic of Cancer or Wharton’s The Age of Innocence intrigued and caught you as a reader, Richard Mason’s new novel is a marvelous ‘literary romp’ to fall into.
“One of the best three books of the year” – Independent
“Piet Barol is a pure pulse of young manhood; not an everyman, but perhaps the fantasy everyman that every man would like to be.” – Times Literary Supplement
“Enthralling and perfectly paced” – The Observer
“A saucy, hugely entertaining romp of a young man making his fortune in 1907 Amsterdam’ – The Sunday Times
“Readers of a sensitive disposition beware” – The Lady
“Highly recommended as
an engaging portrait of an individual, a family, and time.” -- Library Journal, starred
“This bildrungsroman is as smart as it is
seductive . . . Readers will savor final scenes aboard the gilded ocean-liner
Eugenie and welcome the undercurrent that perhaps Piet’s good fortune isn’t
luck at all but a lesson that pleasure exists for those who seek it.”
-- Booklist
Richard Mason
was born in South Africa in
1978 and lives in New York City.
His first novel, The Drowning People,
published when he was twenty-one and still a student at Oxford, sold more than
a million copies worldwide and 
won Italy’s Grinzane Cavour Prize for Best First
Novel. He is also the author of Natural
Elements, which was chosen by the Washington
Post as one of the best books of 2009 and longlisted for the IMPAC Prize
and the Sunday Times Literary
Award. History of a Pleasure Seeker is his fourth novel.
In 1999, with Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mason started the Kay Mason Foundation, which helps
disadvantaged South Africans access quality education. He is the
recipient of the Inyathelo Award for Philanthropy.
- Street:
- 1644 Haight St.
- City:
- San Francisco ,
- Province:
- California
- Postal Code:
- 94117-2816
- Country:
- United States
