'ANDREW MILLER'S WRITING IS A SOURCE OF WONDER AND DELIGHT' Hilary Mantel

'ONE OF OUR MOST SKILFUL CHRONICLERS OF THE HUMAN HEART AND MIND' Sunday Times

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Novel Award

'Beautiful'
The Times

'Superbly realised'
Sunday Telegraph

'Breathtaking'
Irish Times

The third novel from the critically acclaimed author of Pure - a deeply moving exploration of courage, love and liberation in the modern age

In the summer of 1997, four people reach a turning point: Alice Valentine, who lies gravely ill in her West Country home; her two sons, one still searching for a sense of direction, the other fighting to keep his acting career and marriage afloat; and Laszlo Lazar, who leads a comfortable life in Paris yet is plagued by his memories of the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

For each, the time has come to assess what matters in life, and all will be forced to take part in an act of liberation - though not necessarily the one foreseen.


PRAISE FOR ANDREW MILLER

'Unique, visionary, a master at unmasking humanity'
Sarah Hall

'A writer of very rare and outstanding gifts'
Independent on Sunday

'A highly intelligent writer, both exciting and contemplative'
The Times

'A wonderful storyteller'
Spectator

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, a deeply moving exploration of courage, love and liberation in the modern age

About the Author

Andrew Miller's first novel, Ingenious Pain, was published by Sceptre in 1997. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Grinzane Cavour Prize for the best foreign novel published in Italy. It has been followed by Casanova, Oxygen, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award in 2001, The Optimists, One Morning Like a Bird, Pure, which won the Costa Book of the Year Award 2011, The Crossing, Now We Shall Be Entirely Free and The Slowworm's Song.


Andrew Miller's novels have been published in translation in twenty countries. Born in Bristol in 1960, he currently lives in Somerset.

Reviews
His prose is perfectly balanced, both beautiful and exact * The Times *
Elegantly written . . . an intelligent and stylish read * Sunday Telegraph *
Thoughtful, complex and satisfying . . . a deeply pleasurable read * Sunday Times *
A beautifully written novel, which extols the power of love . . . it grabs your attention to the last page * Daily Express *
A writer of astonishing gifts who peels his characters back to the quick with a language that never misses a note . . . his complex characters are unravelled with a depth and elegance that is breathtaking -- Books of the Year * Irish Times *
A writer of verve and talent . . . Miller's prose is fluent, lucid and at times radiant * New York Times Book Review *
Miller's use of imagery is always unexpected, sometimes astonishing . . . impossible to put down * Independent on Sunday *
Miller is a writer of such astonishing prose that wherever he takes his characters, they speak a rare emotional truth * Scotland on Sunday *
Highly accomplished . . . breathe in and enjoy * Literary Review *
He has a surgical disdain for sentimentality and cliche, and his startling sentences, both beautiful and distressing, can lodge themselves in your brain * Daily Telegraph *
At times, reading this disparate, exact novel, you have the suspicion that Andrew Miller's writing might be capable of anything. It is particularly adept, however, at inhabiting neutered, almost insulated lives. In previous books he has quietly conjured other, odd worlds and made them seem like his own . . . Here the places his imagination visits are no less strange and no less directly realised, and the preoccupation with emotional vacuums persists * Observer *
Powerful and moving * Time Out *
Complex and elegantly constructed . . . an admirably restrained piece of writing, tender, funny, witty, profound * Glasgow Sunday Herald *
Poignant, probing, brainy fiction, animated by an intense and complex narrative drive, grounded in a vivid sense of place and character, and enlivened by a sly, stoical wit that keeps cropping up where you least expect it * Chicago Tribune *
Lovely, striking, strange, evocative . . . exquisite * Washington Post *
Exquisitely detailed . . . a real talent * Entertainment Weekly *
An exhilarating journey through personal histories and a knowing glimpse at the ways we hold ourselves responsible for saving the people we love * People *
Four intersecting lives - which take the reader to Los Angeles, Paris, Budapest, and a deathbed in rural England - are portrayed with uncommon wisdom * Boston Globe *



Book Information
ISBN 9780340728260
Author Andrew Miller
Format Paperback
Page Count 336
Imprint Sceptre
Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
Weight(grams) 240g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 128mm * 20mm