http://darkadamant.betterversion.org The Haunted Storm - Obsessive information and blurb 236 pages ISBN: 0450011984 (1st edition hardback); 0450014312 (1973 paperback) Originally sold for £2.25 net Blurb: One of the judges in the New English Library Young Writers' Award, Lady Antonia Fraser, author of "Mary, Queen of Scots", said of this novel- "I liked 'The Haunted Storm' for its honest and enterprising attempt to interweave the eternal - and immortal - longings of youth into the texture of a contemporary story. It is thus a serious book, and refreshingly free from triviality. Philip Pullman seems to me, therefore, to have the real makings of a writer." The central characters are two brothers. Matthew is essentially good - Alan is evil. Matthew is constantly searching - seeking an awareness of himself and a valid relationship with others. He enters into a platonic friendship but the girl he cares for cannot give him the inner comprehension that he wants. Violence and death in a small village form the backdrop to this novel. Unease and suspicion split the community. Physically involved in the investigation, Matthew finds his spiritual problems have a greater depth of reality. Only in the final disastrous confrontation in the ruined Mithraic Temple does he, at last, glimpse the possibility of quietitude. In this, his first novel, Philip Pullman has produced a Hesse-like mixture of the physical and the metaphysical; a cathartic climax shattering in its power. Philip Pullman, joint winner of the New English Library's Young Writers' Award, was born in Norwich in 1946. His father was a serving officer with the R.A.F., and Philip's home moved between Rhodesia, Australia, England and Wales. He read English at Oxford and obtained his B.A. despite having "done his best to ignore the University as far as possible". Philip Pullman has had various jobs and is now working as a librarian in Westminster. He is married with a young son and is currently working on both a play and a new novel. Front cover photograph Picturepoint