All the Conspirators (New Directions Paperbook) - Softcover

A novel of adolescence, of family life among the New Poor, of atrocities witnessed at tea in the drawing room. A profound but not impartial book.--Cyril Connolly

The best prose writer in English.--Gore Vidal

In Isherwood's work, a magic potion of history and invention, the voice is clear, and no matter how many times we hear it, it always seems to be speaking for the first time.

Isherwood's best critics, Gore Vidal and Elizabeth Hardwick, have characterized his work as journalistic and objective, and indeed his writing can be read as a series of dispatches from the gay front.--Hilton Als

Christopher Isherwood was only twenty-one when he began his first novel, All the Conspirators. in his introduction to the American edition, Isherwood explains: “All the Conspirators records a minor engagement in what Shelley calls ‘the great war between the old and young.’ And what a war it was!” in many ways this novel (like the classic Berlin Stories) is a period piece growing out of a particular historical situation—clashes between parents and children with all their passionate moral struggles. Isherwood’s vivid portrayal of an older generation trying to hold on while a younger generation tries to wrench free still resonates and disarms.