Killing a Mouse on Sunday

Description

Film director Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) turned his hand to novel writing in 1961 with this, his only literary output. The story is of a former freedom fighter and bandit hiding out in France in the decades following the Spanish Civil War, deciding whether to risk returning to see his mother on her deathbed. Pressburger uses the setting to explore the morality of war through the different perspectives of his four narrators. Each narrator – 11-year-old Pablo, ageing bandit Manuel Artiguez, the priest that Artiguez’ mother calls to her bedside, and the Javert-like policeman who has a trap laid out for the bandit – has a different and believable voice. This is a first edition in very good condition, illustrated throughout.