Description
A story of a dysfunctional but deeply loveable family reunited, set during the legendary summer of 1976, INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE by Maggie O'Farrell was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Novel Award and was a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller (2013).
It's July 1976. In London, it hasn't rained for months, gardens are filled with aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn't come back. The search for Robert brings Gretta's children - two estranged sisters and a brother on the brink of divorce - back home, each with different ideas as to where their father might have gone. None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share.
An unforgettable portrait of an Irish family in crisis in the legendary heatwave of 1976
About the Author
Maggie O'Farrell is the author of HAMNET, Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020, and the memoir I AM, I AM, I AM, both Sunday Times no. 1 bestsellers. Her novels include AFTER YOU'D GONE, MY LOVER'S LOVER, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, which won a Somerset Maugham Award, THE VANISHING ACT OF ESME LENNOX, THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE, which won the 2010 Costa Novel Award, INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE and THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT, which was shortlisted for the Women's Prize. She is also the author of two books for children, WHERE SNOW ANGELS GO and THE BOY WHO LOST HIS SPARK. She lives in Edinburgh.
Reviews
An accomplished debut that excellently conveys the experience of being deaf in a hearing world. A Sign of Her Own gives a fascinating insight into a moment in history when the invention of the telephone was poised to connect countless people, yet deaf communities were being silenced by a movement against the use of sign language. Beautifully written, absorbing and illuminating -- Priscilla Morris, author of Black Butterflies
The Riordans will stay in your mind long after you finish this book. They're funny, infuriating and impossible not to love. They feel like family * Irish Times *
My favourite kind of novel: big-hearted, psychologically complex and utterly gripping -- Maria Semple, author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette
Unputdownable -- Joanna Briscoe, Guardian
Instantly appealing...magical * Daily Telegraph *
Masterful...holds you on an exquisite knife-edge * Marie Claire *
An author at the top of her game * Sunday Express *
O'Farrell's language is lissom, airborne, mostly seamless, her characters flawed, contradictory, aggravating and instantly knowable. This is a deceptively easy, effortlessly true-feeling novel; a total delight * Metro *
A quite wonderful novel...at once enthralling, page turning and atmospheric * Irish Examiner *
Awards
Short-listed for Costa Novel Award 2013.
Book Information
ISBN 9780755358793
Author Maggie O'Farrell
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Tinder Press
Publisher Headline Publishing Group
Weight(grams) 243g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 130mm * 23mm
