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Serge Carrefax is born into a world of signals and codes. His father, who teaches deaf pupils at the school he runs, spends his time on experiments in wireless, and Serge grows up between sound and silence beside his gifted, unstable older sister Sophie, a closeness that never leaves him. As he grows up his world darkens. His life then traces the arc of the new modern age: a stay at a Bohemian spa, flights over the battlefields of the First World War as radio operator in an aeroplane, a German prisoner-of-war camp, the drug-soaked London of the 1920s and at last the tombs of ancient Egypt.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Historical, War (assigned by AI)

Set in

United Kingdom, Germany, Egypt, early 20th century

First published

2010

Author's age

41 when first published

ISBN

9780224090209 (Jonathan Cape, United Kingdom)

9780307593337 (Alfred A. Knopf, United States)

9780099547020 (Vintage, United Kingdom)

9780307388216 (Vintage, United States)

More

Wikidata