Stephen Fry - Stars Tennis Balls
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- Book:Stars Tennis Balls
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The Stars Tennis Balls is a psychological thriller novel by Stephen Fry, first published in 2000. In the United States, the title was changed to Revenge. In the afterword to the 2003 American edition, Fry admits that the story is a straight steal, virtually identical in all but period and style to Alexandre Dumass The Count of Monte Cristo but denies plagiarism, since Dumas also admits that the plot was taken from a contemporary urban legend.The original title comes from a quotation taken from John Websters The Duchess of Malfi, which reads: We are merely the stars tennis balls, struck and bandied which way please them. The novel is dedicated To MColleague (meaning Hugh Laurie, MColleague being the name by which Fry and Laurie referred to each other in their TV show A Bit of Fry and Laurie).
Stephen Fry: author's other books
Who wrote Stars Tennis Balls? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
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Alfred Bester
Julie Ganz
F. W. J. Hemmings
United States Tennis Association
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Laurie Hernandez
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Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas pere
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Ned Maddstone has it all. He's handsome and talented; he has the love of a beautiful woman and in 1980, he stands at the brink of a glittering future. He rounds off an outstanding public school career with a sailing trip to Scotland, which is where his fortunes enter a terrifying tailspin. Determined to honour the dying wish of his sailing instructor, Ned returns to London, where the schemes of jealous classmates catapult him into a 10-year nightmare. Confined to a solitary Hell, believed dead by all those who loved him, Ned transforms from a terminally nice guy into a creature bent on revenge, a revenge both satisfying and apocalyptic. Few writers can deliver so much in one package, but here Stephen Fry combines a riotous satire of the privileged classes with elements of the darkest thrillers. While the plot bounces from the sublime to the surreal, his characters remain acutely real. Ned's classmates, slow-witted hedonist Rufus Cade, and the Machiavellian climber Ashley Barson-Garland who is aroused by the sight of straw boaters are masterful creations. This novel has nothing to do with tennis, and everything to do with the cruel logic of Fate. Game, set and match to Mr Fry. Matthew Baylis
The Stars Tennis Balls
Stephen Fry
To M Colleague
We are merely the stars tennis balls, struck and banded
Which way please them
John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, Act V Scene 3 I. Set-Up
It all began some time in the last century, in an age when lovers wrote letters to each other sealed up in envelopes. Sometimes they used coloured inks to show their love, or they perfumed their writing-paper with scent.
41 Plough Lane,
Hampstead,
London NW3
Monday, June 2nd 1980
Darling Ned
Im sorry about the smell. I hope you ye opened this somewhere private, all on your own. Youll get teased to distraction otherwise. Its called Rive Gauche, so Im feeling like Simone de Beauvoir and I hope youre feeling like Jean-Paul Sartre. Actually I hope you arent because I think he was pretty horrid to her. Im writing this upstairs after a row with Pete and Hillary. Ha, ha, ha! Pete and Hillary, Pete and Hillary, Pete and Hillary. You hate it when I call them that, dont you? I love you so much. If you saw my diary youd die. I wrote a whole two pages this morning. I drew up a list of everything thats wonderful and glorious about you and one day when we re together for ever I might let you look at it and youll die again.
I wrote that youre old-fashioned.
One: the first time we met you stood up when I entered the room, which was sweet, but it was the Hard Rock Caf and I was coming out of the kitchen to take your order.
Two: every time I refer to my mum and dad as Peter and Hillary, you go pink and tighten your lips.
Three: when you first talked to Pete and all right, Ill let you off when you first talked to Mum and Dad, you let them go on and on about private education and private health and how terrible it was and how evil the government is and you never said a word. About your dad being a Tory MP, I mean. You talked beautifully about the weather and incomprehensibly about cricket. But you never let on.
Thats what the row today was about, in fact. Your dad was on Weekend World at lunchtime, you prolly saw him. (I love you, by the way. God, I love you so much.)
Where do they find them? barked Pete, stabbing a finger at the television. Where do they find them?
Find who? I said coldly, gearing up for a fight.
Whom, said Hillary.
These tweed-jacketed throwbacks, said Pete.
Look at the old fart. What right has he got to talk about the miners? He wouldnt recognise a lump of coal if it fell into his bowl of Brown Windsor soup.
You remember the boy I brought home last week? I said, with what Im pretty sure any observer would call icy calm.
Job security he says! Peter yelled at the screen. When have you ever had to worry about job security, Mr Eton, Oxford and the Guards? Then he turned to me. Hm? What boy? When?
He always does that when you ask him a question says something else first, completely off the subject, and then answers your question with one (or more) of his own. Drives me mad. (So do you, darling Neddy. But mad with deepest love.) If you were to say to my father, Pete, what year was the battle of Hastings? he'd say, Theyre cutting back on unemployment benefit. In real terms its gone down by five per cent in just two years. Five per cent. Bastards. Hastings? Why do you want to know? Why Hastings? Hastings was nothing but a clash between warlords and robber barons. The only battle worth knowing about is the battle between and hed be off. He knows it drives me mad. I think it prolly drives Hillary mad too. Anyway, I persevered.
The boy I brought home, I said. His name was Ned. You remember him perfectly well. It was his half term. He came into the Hard Rock two weeks ago.
The Sloane Ranger in the cricket jumper, what about him?
He is not a Sloane Ranger!
Looked like one to me. Didnt he look like a Sloane Ranger to you, Hills?
He was certainly very polite, Hillary said.
Exactly. Pete returned to the bloody TV where there was a shot of your dad trying to address a group of Yorkshire miners, which I have to admit was quite funny. Look at that! First time the old fascist has ever been north of Watford in his life, I guarantee you. Except when hes passing through on his way to Scotland to murder grouse. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
Never mind Watford, when did you last go north of Hampstead? I said. Well, shouted. Which was fair I think, because he was driving me mad and he can be such a hypocrite sometimes.
Hillary went all dont-you-talk-to-your-father-like-that-ish and then got back to her article. Shes doing a new column now, for Spare Rib, and gets ratty very easily.
You seem to have forgotten that I took my doctorate at Sheffield University, Pete said, as if that qualified him for the Northerner of the Decade Award.
Never mind that, I went on. The point is Ned just happens to be that man s son. And I pointed at the screen with a very exultant finger. Unfortunately the man on camera just at that moment was the presenter.
Pete turned to me with a look of awe. That boy is Brian Waldens son? he said hoarsely. Youre going out with Brian Waldens son?
It seems that Brian Walden, the presenter, used to be a Labour MP. For one moment Pete had this picture of me stepping out with socialist royalty. I could see his brain rapidly trying to calculate the chances of his worming his way into Brian Waldens confidence (father-in-law to father-in-law) wangling a seat in the next election and progressing triumphantly from the dull grind of the Inner London Education Authority to the thrill and glamour of the House of Commons and national fame. Peter Fendeman, maverick firebrand and hero of the workers, I watched the whole fantasy pass through his greedy eyes. Disgusting.
Not him! I said. Him! Your father had appeared back on screen again, now striding towards the door of Number Ten with papers tucked under his arm.
I love you, Ned. I love you more than the tides love the moon. More than Mickey loves Minnie and Pooh loves honey. I love your big dark eyes and your sweet round bum. I love your mess of hair and your very red lips. They are very red in fact, I bet you didnt know that. Very few people have lips that really are red in the way that poets write about red. Yours are the reddest red, a redder red than ever I read of, and I want them all over me
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