My third novel, GHOST PORTRAIT, is out now in paperback price £7.99. Critics who've read it seem to have liked it... “As with much historical fiction, starting to read this book is a little like being asked to join a dance you barely know the steps to; one that seems a little ridiculous until you're into the swing of it. It's a testament to Norminton's storytelling skills that a 17th-century idiom regularly launching descriptions like "the pastry coffin of the evening's meat" (presumably some kind of pie) at the reader soon feels as comfortable as a Leveller's boot. "William Stroud calls to visit the elderly, almost blind painter Nathaniel Deller, his former teacher. Before long the old man is groping around in a secret priest hole to show William the last paintings he worked on before his sight deteriorated. He makes William a proposition: if the young man can complete a portrait of Deller's dead wife, he can court his daughter. It's a neat premise that allows Norminton to write a simple story while engaging with a range of cultural and social concerns. Art is discussed in a low-key but highly informed fashion, and the Digger community (Diggers proposed cultivating common land to support their communities) at Cobham Heath, Surrey, is described in detail, but always in the context of the human drama. "Much historical fiction thrives on caricature, but the characters in Ghost Portrait live and breathe, full of memories and regret. Readers normally averse to books rooted in the distant past should give this one a chance. The first few pages may be a shock to the system, but the rest will more than justify it.” Tom Boncza-Tomaszewski, THE INDEPENDENT “An intimate drama that wears its learning lightly, written with great clarity and the minimum of narrative fuss… Norminton relates a timeless story of professional compromise and personal betrayal… With delicate, economical strokes, Norminton has created characters that strain against their historical circumstance, without ever jarring into anachronism. Each is drawn with a skilful sympathy that resonates beyond the page. The blank-faced painting of Deller's dead wife — irrevocable, unfinishable — is not the only ghost portrait in the book: there is also his sketch of Thomas on the heath, drawn before the bitterness of crushed hopes, and his own memories of his younger self. Suffused with desire and regret, this beautiful, understated novel is a moving meditation on change and compromise, on "time — which makes us contradict ourselves.” Justine Jordan, THE GUARDIAN “An elegant, convincing historical novel whose setting complements rather than engulfs the human drama.” TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT “Norminton’s prose is as lyrical as ever, at its best in his wonderfully bucolic realisation of the Diggers’ doomed utopian community… Anything by Gregory Norminton is a pleasure to read.” TIME OUT 'A fascinating insight into an England torn apart by war.' WESTERN MAIL And here is a brief sample of what they're talking about... He is in the shallows of sleep when a dream disturbs him. His father is standing above him in the hayloft, a small cloud, a wisp of turbulence, cupped in his hands. He cannot see, in his dream, what the cloud consists of but clearly his father is weeping. With a cry the boy wakes, bitterly grieving his mother, three years dead, whose face he is beginning to forget. Poor Jem, he tells himself, caressing his brow. Sleep, Jem, hush-a-bye. And he turns his back to the stable door, whence a faint breeze tugs at his shirt: the breath of a storm brewing, that means to keep him in cold, unmothered wakefulness. No: he is mistaken: the rain has begun already to fall. He hears it on the roof, like a cloth being dragged across a floor, while beyond, the trees and grasses softly whisper. There is no time to make these sounds comforting. A noise detaches itself from the rain, of horses running. Of one horse rather, coming from the road. Jem fumbles for the lantern. He fails to light it with his brother’s flint and runs out to the yard. The sky is turbulent as in a dream; and indeed he is not yet fully awake as the foaming horse careers into view from behind the hawthorn. Where does this strange light come from? Is it the moon glowing through the clouds? The rider sees Jem – the stables – the Master’s house. He pulls violently, too violently from the horse’s shudder, on the reins and slows. Jem has heard his father greeting strangers. He shapes his voice in his throat before he calls. ‘What news on the road?’ The rider is darkly cloaked, his hat pressed tightly on his head. ‘Nothing good. I’ve not dismounted since Dover.’ The horse’s eyes bulge in the storm light; thick cream drips from its mouth. Jem reaches tentatively for the bridle. The steaming presence of the horse and the unknown, brooding man upon it, are stark intrusions on his fancy. The world has come to him, smelling of action. Young though he may be – a fool his brother says – yet he knows what today is. ‘Has the king landed?’ The stranger dismounts on Jem’s side and stands, bow-legged, pushing his fists into the small of his back. ‘I saw him myself. There were crowds to greet him. They lifted their arms and cheered. I thought I’d be sick from the smell. Such a frenzy for a peruke suggests we deserve to be ruled by one.’ Jem looks, uncomprehending, at the bitter cast of the stranger’s mouth. He would like to have been there, in the festive streets. He imagines the nearness of the sea; the fret of sailing masts above the rooftops; cries of gulls and cries of welcome. ‘What is your name, sir?’ ‘Thomas Digby.’ The man’s face, shadowed by his rainswept hat, seems to arrange itself to an uneasy softness. Jem hears kindness, wilfully inflected, in his voice. ‘And you, friend?’ ‘James, sir.’ ‘Be as familiar with me as with yourself, James. I’ll brook no deference, do you hear?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Not sir.’ Jem thinks he has angered him. The rain grows heavy; it drums on the boy’s skull, making him feel even more stupid than he knows himself to be. He pulls the wet bridle and gingerly strokes the horse’s cheek. He wants to soothe it after its too hurried race. Keeping his eyes on the animal – which follows him meekly to the stable – he finds the courage to question its rider. ‘Was he handsome, sir? I should like to set my eyes on a king. See what all the fuss is about…’ Damnable rain: Digby must shout to be heard above it. ‘Believe me, the sight is not worth the expense of its maintenance. Cherish instead the smiles of your children.’ ‘I’m only a boy, sir.’ ‘Then cherish your freedom while it lasts.’ Jem points, needlessly, the way to the house. It is grander than Thomas Digby imagined: the ground floor of Maidstone flint, the upper walls handsomely beamed with gabled windows, and five chimneys feebly smoking against the deluge. ‘He is in, I take it?’ ‘I saw him in the garden this afternoon, sir.’ Digby gropes in his coat pocket for a coin and presses it into the boy’s hand. He watches as his horse is led to its rest. He sounds the depth of his hunger, his trepidation, and strides resolutely towards the door. The path sucks at his boots as he enters the gaze of the house. There are trees, obscurely gathered, buffeted by the storm. Digby glimpses the brick of a walled garden behind dark topiary. There is a lake – is it? – to the side of the house; hence the music of rain on water. He pauses with his hand on the door-knocker. There is no question of escape now, of seizing his exhausted horse and riding back at once to Lambeth. The pelting of the storm dictates his action; and from this Digby takes courage, for Providence seems to mean him to stay. Copyright © Gregory Norminton 2004