Brook, Rhidian

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BROOK, Rhidian

PERSONAL:

Born in Tenby, Wales, United Kingdom; married; wife's name Nicola; children: Gabriel.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Chiswick, England. Agent—c/o Penguin Publicity, Penguin Group, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014.

CAREER:

Author and copywriter.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Betty Trask Award, Society of Authors, 1996, and Somerset Maugham Award, Arts Club First Novel Award, Welsh Novel of the Year shortlist, and Dillons First Fiction Award shortlist, all 1997, all for The Testimony of Taliesin Jones.

WRITINGS:

The Testimony of Taliesin Jones, Flamingo (London, England), 1996, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Jesus and the Adman, Flamingo (London, England), 1998.

ADAPTATIONS:

The Testimony of Taliesin Jones was adapted to film.

SIDELIGHTS:

Welsh novelist and copywriter Rhidian Brook's multiple award-winning novel The Testimony of Taliesin Jones chronicles the coming of age of the book's eleven-year-old namesake, Taliesin Jones. While the quiet, studious Jones seeks a safe haven in books, his life falls apart around him. His parents prepare to divorce as his mother goes to live with Toni, her hairdresser-turned-lover. When Jones develops a friendship with the elderly piano teacher, Billy, he is introduced to the seemingly miraculous world of faith healing. Jones and a group of friends at school take up the faith and form a group of healers called The Believers, who heal through prayer and the laying on of hands. However, their efforts lead them into trouble when the parents of a diabetic student object to their attempts at faith healing. Jones is punished by being forced to testify to his beliefs before the entire class, but far from being a punishment, his testimony helps him reach a new level of personal clarity and come to terms with his drastically altered home life.

"Brook writes eloquently about the pain of a family about to fall apart, and he also does some graceful, understated work in bringing to life his small-town characters," commented a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Brook's "skillful handling of a present-tense narrative and his artful conflation of the voices of child and author make The Testimony of Taliesin Jones an impressive debut," remarked Stephen Knight in the Times Literary Supplement.

With Jesus and the Adman, Brooks "has once more produced a novel worthy of all the prizes you can throw at it," commented Miranda France in the Spectator. Ambitious and career-minded copywriter Johnny is constantly looking for the breakout jingle or ad campaign that will make his career for him. Working to the point of obsession, he concocts slogans while jogging and performs his own brand of market research on himself to figure out what he wants and needs in his daily life and in his relationship with girlfriend Penny.

The wheels of Johnny's mind never stop spinning, even during his father's funeral, and it is there he spots the image that he's been looking for: a statue of a smiling, grinning Jesus. The life insurance campaign he creates using the jovial-looking Jesus wins him awards and material reward, but as he advances quickly through the ranks, a sense of uneasiness that hovered around the edges of the "Smiling Jesus" campaign becomes darker and more sinister. Johnny becomes physically ill and develops an obsession with death. The smiling Jesus, which looks down at him from billboards and placards, no longer seems to be smiling. Commerce, it seems, has trespassed on the territory of the soul, and Johnny alone stands to pay the price for the transgression.

Jesus and the Adman "meets criteria that many contemporary novelists have either forgotten about or simply cannot satisfy," France observed. "The structure is perfect, the characters, even where lightly drawn, are credible, the plot is compelling." The novel, France noted, addresses issues that are "profound and troubling."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Denver Post, February 1, 2002, Steven Rosen, "'Jones' at Least Addresses Religion, but not Believably," movie review of The Testimony of Taliesin Jones, section E, p. 5.

Publishers Weekly, December 10, 2001, review of The Testimony of Taliesin Jones, p. 51.

Spectator, November 21, 1998, Miranda France, review of Jesus and the Adman, p. 48.

Times Literary Supplement, June 21, 1996, Stephen Knight, review of The Testimony of Taliesin Jones, p. 24.