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Barnes & Noble Press
The Second Notebook
The Second Notebook
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$15.99 USD
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Le Mans, June 1952. In the Mercedes pit lane, among the smell of oil, hot metal, and men dismantling machines, British journalist Arthur Cavendish sits down with Hermann Lang, an old friend from a vanished world. Arthur has carried a story for sixteen years. At last, he has decided to tell it.
It begins in London, in March 1936, when a man with a forgettable face offers him something that is not quite a job and not quite a threat. Arthur is already moving through the world of Grand Prix motor racing with unusual ease: wealthy, educated, fluent in French, Italian, and German, a gentleman enthusiast trusted by drivers, mechanics, officials, and team managers. He is asked only to listen. To notice. To remember.
At first, it seems harmless.
The circuits are beautiful. Monaco, Tripoli, Nürburgring, Pescara, Monza. The cars are magnificent. The Silver Arrows have turned speed into spectacle, and men like Rudolf Caracciola, Bernd Rosemeyer, Hermann Lang, Tazio Nuvolari, and Richard Seaman risk everything in machines that seem to belong more to the future than to the road.
But Europe is changing around them. The flags multiply. The crowds grow larger. The victories become useful. Racing is no longer separate from politics, no matter how badly Arthur wants to believe it is. The stopwatch does not lie, but everything around it can be arranged, photographed, repeated, and turned into meaning.
As Arthur moves deeper into the paddocks, hotels, press rooms, and private conversations of the Grand Prix world, the difference between observing and participating begins to narrow. Friendship becomes access. Silence becomes protection. A young English driver's ambition becomes something others can use. And Arthur, who once believed he was merely watching history pass before him, discovers that watching has consequences of its own.
The Second Notebook is a literary historical novel of speed, espionage, complicity, and memory. Set against the dangerous glamour of 1930s Grand Prix racing, it asks what it means to witness a beautiful and terrible thing, and to write only about the beauty.
It begins in London, in March 1936, when a man with a forgettable face offers him something that is not quite a job and not quite a threat. Arthur is already moving through the world of Grand Prix motor racing with unusual ease: wealthy, educated, fluent in French, Italian, and German, a gentleman enthusiast trusted by drivers, mechanics, officials, and team managers. He is asked only to listen. To notice. To remember.
At first, it seems harmless.
The circuits are beautiful. Monaco, Tripoli, Nürburgring, Pescara, Monza. The cars are magnificent. The Silver Arrows have turned speed into spectacle, and men like Rudolf Caracciola, Bernd Rosemeyer, Hermann Lang, Tazio Nuvolari, and Richard Seaman risk everything in machines that seem to belong more to the future than to the road.
But Europe is changing around them. The flags multiply. The crowds grow larger. The victories become useful. Racing is no longer separate from politics, no matter how badly Arthur wants to believe it is. The stopwatch does not lie, but everything around it can be arranged, photographed, repeated, and turned into meaning.
As Arthur moves deeper into the paddocks, hotels, press rooms, and private conversations of the Grand Prix world, the difference between observing and participating begins to narrow. Friendship becomes access. Silence becomes protection. A young English driver's ambition becomes something others can use. And Arthur, who once believed he was merely watching history pass before him, discovers that watching has consequences of its own.
The Second Notebook is a literary historical novel of speed, espionage, complicity, and memory. Set against the dangerous glamour of 1930s Grand Prix racing, it asks what it means to witness a beautiful and terrible thing, and to write only about the beauty.
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