Overview

From a Costa Book of the Year winner, Booker nominee and double Granta-selected Best Young British novelist comes a searing portrayal of the gradual uncovering of one woman's past psychological wounds, set in motion by the arrival of an unexpected letter. In the 1980s, Anna McCormick was an anti-nuclear peace activist. She was used to taking on those abusing their political power, but when she was targeted by abuse herself, it left a wound so deep it would still be reverberating through her life decades later. In 2020, Anna is teaching nine-year-olds on Zoom, navigating a relationship interrupted by enforced distance, and coping with a teenaged son who cannot leave the house. When an unstamped envelope arrives overnight, the traumatic past she had tried to bury begins to cast its own long shadow on the present. This is a twisty, heart-racing page-turner and an incisive look at the personal impact of the violence of the state, the police and the villains much closer to home.

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9781916812284

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"Praise for Previous Work Winner of the Costa Book Award for Day Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Serious Sweet ""Kennedy is described in the literary press as not only one of our finest, but also one of our most humane, writers"" Church Times ""Kennedy is a singular, superlative author."" Scotland on Sunday ""Kennedy does bleak the way the Russians do epic; unremittingly, awesomely and undershot with redeeming humour"" Sunday Times ""Kennedy brilliantly interweaves over-wrought internal dialogue with external outrageous acts. The unfolding tenderness of nature and of amity blend superbly with the casualness of daily horror."" Independent on Sunday ""Kennedy is a superb writer and the canniness of her observation keeps you reading"" Sunday Times ""Kennedy's exquisite blending of the limits of pain and courage recall Primo Levi."" Catherine Taylor, Financial Times ""In equal measures, funny, sad and addictive."" Stylist"

'Kennedy is a force of nature.' -- New York Times 'It seems everything [Kennedy] touches turns to art … she continues to impress with her psychological fearlessness and breathtaking affection for language.' -- New York Times 'A testament to the minor miracle of Kennedy's talent … a talented stylist, her lyrical flights are often musical and rich.' -- New York Magazine 'A distinctive monument in the landscape of contemporary Scottish writing. Truthful, surprising and visceral, it provokes the sort of response that reminds us what fiction is for.' -- LA Times Review of Books, books of the year 'Kennedy does bleak the way the Russians do epic; unremittingly, awesomely and undershot with redeeming humour' -- Sunday Times 'Kennedy brilliantly interweaves over-wrought internal dialogue with external outrageous acts. The unfolding tenderness of nature and of amity blend superbly with the casualness of daily horror.' -- Independent on Sunday 'Kennedy is a superb writer and the canniness of her observation keeps you reading' -- Sunday Times 'Kennedy's exquisite blending of the limits of pain and courage recall Primo Levi.' -- Financial Times

Author Information

A. L. Kennedy has won a variety of UK and international book awards, including a Lannan Award, the Costa Prize, the Heinrich Heine Preis, the Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rees Prize. She has twice been included on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list. She has written ten novels, one of which was longlisted for the Booker Prize, six short story collections, three books of non-fiction and three books for children. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the Akademie der Kunst. She also writes for the stage, screen, TV and has created an extensive body of radio work including documentaries, monologues, dramas and essays. She also performs occasionally in one-person shows and as a stand-up comic.

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