Waiting for Sunrise
April 2013
William Boyd / Bloomsbury
William Boyd has often been an overlooked and under-rated writer in comparison to the more glamorous of his generation (Amis, Barnes, Self, McEwan et al) – quite undeservedly.
Waiting for Sunrise begins in Vienna, 1913 – and how could any such opening not involve spy games and psychoanalysis? Innocent Brit abroad Lysander Rief is seeking a cure for his anorgasmia (inability to orgasm) via new psychoanalytic methods, and in the doctor’s waiting rooms meets fellow Brit, the alluring (though not perhaps in name) Hettie Bull.
An affair begins, anorgasmia vanishes, but it all (inevitably) ends badly. Very badly. Back in England in 1914, as the country heads to war, Rief’s messy Viennese past comes back to entangle him.
Dragged into an undercover code-breaking mission, Rief finds himself a puppet at the mercy of an increasingly curious cast of characters many of whom had appeared, at some point, during his earlier Viennese days. Waiting for Sunrise guarantees a thrilling night or two by the winter fire.
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