All 40% Off Sales Final - Not Guaranteed

List $29.95

Written by Richard Rayner - Audio book performed by Simon Jones - 6 CASSETTES - 9 hours

Publisher, Harper Audio (February 2001)

The Cloud Sketcher is a passionate tale of love, war and art that ranges from the ice fields of the Arctic Circle at the dawn of the last century to the ruthless world of 1920's New York.

In a tiny Finnish village, Esko Vaananen mourns the death of his mother, who died in the same fire that so horribly scarred his face. At the brink of despair, he has a vision of an impossibly tall building rising gracefully from a frozen lake, disappearing into the clouds above. This "cloud sketcher," or skyscraper, sparks Esko's lifelong quest for beauty. He becomes an architect, believing that if he can create something of unparalleled loveliness, surely he will be worthy of his true love, Katerina. This obsessive desire causes Esko to risk everything time and again: as a reluctant hero in the Finnish civil war; as a laborer on the treacherous high steel of a Manhattan riveting gang; and finally, as a man accused of murdering the husband of the woman he loves.

The Cloud Sketcher is a transforming journey into the heart of beauty and the peril of love, a lyrical epic that resurrects history with such authenticity and drama as to place Richard Rayner in the company of our very best novelists.

About the Author: RICHARD RAYNER'S previous books include the memoir The Blue Suit and the novels Murder Book, Los Angeles Without a Map, and The Elephant. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Talk and many other publications. He lives in Los Angeles.

About the Performer: SIMON JONES has starred on Broadway in The Real Inspector Hound, toured nationally in Private Lives, and played Bridey in PBS's Brideshead Revisited.