Patricia Duncker Books

Hallucinating Foucault is a love story, a mystery and a quest. It tells of a lost mad writer, the glamorous, scandalous Paul Michel, and the reader who sets out to find him. This first novel will appeal to the same readership as The Secret History

Elizabeth Webster is a sixty-nine year old retired school teacher. She is a tough, old bird- spiky, cynical and adamantly independent; a woman who has never married, has no friends and lost touch with all her family. In Little Blessington, the village she lives in, the Miss Marple-like figure is regarded as something of a local oddity. Then one day a beautiful young Moroccan knocks at her door. Cherif's mother befriended Miss Webster on her holiday to Morocco and now the young man is here to begin university in the town nearby. Before she knows it, Miss Webster finds herself with an unexpected lodger. The two could not be more different- the gentle, shy, well mannered young man, bewildered by this strange, new world; and the sharp-tongued old spinster who guides him through its maze. Yet little by little, they become friends. But the villagers of Little Blessington are suspicious. Cherif is too handsome, too young and he's Arab. No good can come of this.

An intricate and self-reflective novel about that most delicate of relationships--meaning the one between writers and readers. The narrator, an anonymous graduate student, sets off on the trail of a French novelist named Paul Michel, who is currently confined to an asylum. Engineering his hero's release, the narrator finds himself enmeshed in a bizarre love triangle, of which the three vertices are himself, the novelist, and the late Michel Foucault. Sex, it seems, can be made safe, but the oddball intimacy of reading cannot.

Patricia Duncker's third book is an elegant exploration of the way gender and identity shape a life. The starring role is given to James Miranda Barry, a 19th century society figure, who enrolled as a student at Edinburgh

At the center of The Deadly Space Between is an adolescent boy, Toby Hawk, whose intimate relationship with his mother and her mysterious lover leads to a chilling outcome. A solitary boy in a family of independent, unconventional women, Toby lives in a small, closed world that consists of school and surfing the Internet. His mother, only fifteen years his senior, is a painter on the brink of commercial success. But everything changes when she takes up with Roehm, a fascinating but enigmatic scientist. As he begins his slow dance of courtship and seduction, alienating mother from son, their lives become unstable and duplicitous. But who is Roehm really -- this huge, sinister, irresistible man with no discernible past? The confused adolescent turns to the Web for clues about his mother's hauntingly seductive, predatory lover -- and the answers he finds transform his life. An eerie psychological ghost story with echoes of Faust, Freud, and Frankenstein, The Deadly Space Between is a disturbing tale of Oedipal passions -- a rich and dark exploration of sexual ambiguity and longing.

The thrilling tale of a secret suicide sect and the musical mastermind at its center. Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger, the Best Crime Novel of the Year

The seven tales that comprise this collection were written to disturb and provoke. The stories are interwoven and have an edgy tone reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe at his most dazzling and thought-provoking. They are amoral, vindictive and unforgiving.

Berlin, September 1872. Still sitzt sie am Kamin, die Beine übereinander geschlagen, den Blick konzentriert auf ihn gerichtet. Ihr Ruhm hallt durch ganz Europa, doch ihr deutscher Verleger Max Duncker steht ihr zum ersten Mal gegenüber: der gefeierten Autorin, die die Welt als George Eliot kennt. Der rätselhaften Sibylle, die als zu anstößig gilt, um bei respektablen Familien geladen zu werden, und von der doch jedes Wort verschlungen wird. Max mit seinem Hang zum Spiel und zu schönen Frauen ist von seinem Bruder angesetzt, die große Dame zu umgarnen und die Rechte an ihrem neuen Werk zu sichern. Zudem soll er sich mit der Gräfin Sophie von Hahn verloben, Tochter aus vermögendem Hause und glühende Verehrerin der Eliot. Als Sophie auf ein Treffen mit der bewunderten Autorin dringt, das Max ihr jedoch entschieden verwehrt, entspinnt sich ein wahres Dramolett der Eifersucht. Wie in ihrem großen Erfolg »Die Germanistin« beschreibt Patricia Duncker ein obsessives Verhältnis zwischen Autorin und Leserin, erzählt von Begehren und Verfehlung. Ein rachsüchtiges kleines Spiel, hintertrieben von Liebe.

Der achtzehnjährige Toby lebt in einer englischen Kleinstadt, geborgen im Schoß einer ungewöhnlichen Familie, eines kleinen Matriarchats, bestehend aus seiner Mutter Iso, Tante Luce und deren Lebensgefährtin Liberty. In diese Idylle bricht plötzlich mit dem Geliebten der Mutter das männliche Element als existenzielle Ruhestörung ein. Im doppelten Kampf um die Liebe der Mutter und die ihres Geliebten entwickelt sich Toby zum fanatischen Spitzel, der jeden ihrer Schritte überwacht und vor allem alles daran setzt, die wahre Identität Roehms aufzudecken.