Richard Beard

Private Schools and the Ruin of England

Sad Little Men

With each miracle performed by Jesus, his childhood friend Lazarus' health deteriorates until after his death Jesus weeps and another miracle follows as Lazarus returns to life.

A Biography

Lazarus is Dead

Gallio does counter-insurgency. But the theft of a body he's supposed to be guarding ruins his career. Bizarre rumours of the walking dead are swirling, there is panic in the air, and itâe(tm)s his job to straighten out the conspiracy. He blows the case. Years later, the file is reopened when a second body appears. Gallio is called back by headquarters and ordered to track down everyone involved the first time round. The only problem is they keep dying, in ever more grotesque and violent ways. How can Gallio stay ahead of the game when the game keeps changing? Acts of the Assassins is about one manâe(tm)s struggle to confront forces beyond his understanding. And about how lonely a turbulent world can be.

Acts of the Assassins

Second Series

Brief Biographical Sketches of Some of the Early Ministers of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church

One Life, Two Friends, Three Genders

Becoming Drusilla

This story of Jesus’s childhood best friend is “a thrilling meta-novel” and one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of the Year (Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette). Like most successful men in their early thirties, Lazarus has plans that don’t involve dying. He is busy organizing his sisters, his business, and his women. Life is mostly good until far away in Galilee, without warning, his childhood best friend, Jesus, turns water into wine. Immediately, Lazarus falls ill. And with each subsequent miracle his health deteriorates: a nasty cough develops into an alarming array of afflictions unresponsive to the usual remedies. His sisters think Jesus can help, but the two men haven’t spoken for years. Lazarus is willing to try anything to make himself well, anything, that is, except ask Jesus for help. Lazarus dies. Jesus weeps. Lazarus rises. This part we all know. But Lazarus is about to discover that returning from the dead isn’t easy at all . . . An ingeniously funny and moving novel disguised as biography, Lazarus Is Dead recounts the story of a great friendship lost and regained that unabashedly turns convention on its head. Richard Beard draws on biblical sources, historical detail, art, and contemporary literature to cast a spell that remains unbroken until the final pages of this story about second chances. “Beard’s take on Lazarus is nothing less than astonishing—and he respects the reader by taking religion and religious questions seriously.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Thoroughly entertaining . . . a brilliant, genre-bending retelling and subversion of one of the oldest, most sensational stories in the western canon.” —Sunday Business Post (Ireland) “Clever and original . . . keeps the reader guessing until the death—and beyond.” —The Financial Times

A Novel

Lazarus Is Dead

In 1975, as a child, Richard Beard was sent away from his home to sleep in a dormitory. So were David Cameron and Boris Johnson. In those days a private boys' boarding school education was largely the same experience as it had been for generations: a training for the challenges of Empire. He didn't enjoy it. But the first and most important lesson was to not let that show. Being separated from the people who love you is traumatic. How did that feel at the time, and what sort of adult does it mould? This is a story about England, and a portrait of a type of boy, trained to lead, who becomes a certain type of man. As clearly as an X-ray, it reveals the make-up of those who seek power - what makes them tick, and why. Sad Little Men addresses debates about privilege head-on; clearly and unforgettably, it shows the problem with putting a succession of men from boarding schools into positions of influence, including 10 Downing Street. Is this who we want in charge, especially at a time of crisis? It is a passionate, tender reckoning - with one individual's past, but also with a national bad habit.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE A charismatic cult leader is dead. One by one his followers are being assassinated. Enter Gallio. Gallio does counter-insurgency. But the theft of a body he's supposed to be guarding ruins his career. Years later, the file is reopened when a second body appears. Gallio is called back by headquarters and ordered to track down everyone involved the first time round. The only problem is they keep dying, in ever more grotesque and violent ways. How can Gallio stay ahead of the game when the game keeps changing?

WINNER OF THE PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE 2018 SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2018 SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE 2018 My younger brother’s name is Nicholas Beard. He was nine years old, and I was with him in the water when he drowned. On a family holiday in Cornwall in 1978, Richard and Nicholas are in the sea, jumping the waves. Suddenly and inexplicably Nicholas is out of his depth and then, shockingly, so is Richard. Only one of the brothers returns to the shore. Richard does not attend Nicholas’s funeral and afterwards the family return to Cornwall to continue the holiday. Soon they stop speaking of that day at the beach altogether. Years later, haunted by grief, Richard sets out to piece together the story. Who was Nicholas? What really happened that day? And why did the family never speak of it again?

Richard Beard

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