'A sublime gift' MEG MASON

A taut, ground-breaking new novel about a writer's relationship with her larger-than-life mother - and about the very nature of writing.

Ten months after her mother's death, the narrator of The Hero of This Book walks across London on a quiet Sunday. The city was a favourite of her mother's, and as the narrator wanders the streets, she finds herself recalling all that made her complicated mother extraordinary. Even though the woman, a writer, wants to respect her mother's nearly pathological sense of privacy, she must decide whether making a chronicle of this remarkable life constitutes an act of love or betrayal.

* A New Yorker, Time, Washington Post, Oprah Daily and NPR Book of the Year *

'I absolutely loved it. A moving portrayal of daughterhood...suffused with warmth and love' MEGAN HUNTER, author of The Harpy

'Confirms McCracken as among the finest contemporary chroniclers of everyday life... wonderful' GUARDIAN

'Tender, funny, heartbreaking... a writer who always delights' RUMAAN ALAM, author of Leave the World Behind

About the Author
Elizabeth McCracken is the award-winning author of eight books, Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry, The Giant's House (a National Book Award finalist), Niagara Falls All Over Again, the memoir An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imag ination, Thunderstruck & Other Stories (winner of the 2014 Story Prize, longlisted for the National Book Award), The Souvenir Museum and The Hero of This Book. She has received grants and fellow ships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and she was chosen as one of Granta's 20 Best American Writers Under 40. She has served on the faculty at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and currently holds the James Michener Chair for Fic tion at the University of Texas at Austin.

Reviews
Into a single, most singular novel, McCracken fits everything we adult daughters know and feel and love and fear about our beautiful, complicated mothers, and could never say. A sublime gift. -- Meg Mason, author of Sorrow and Bliss
What could be better value than a book set over one day that you can read in one day, but that will stay in your heart and refuse to go... One of the greatest memoirs of a parent. * The Times *
Confirms McCracken as among the finest contemporary chroniclers of everyday life. Like Elizabeth Strout and Ann Patchett, she combines a blistering intelligence with deep humanity. * Guardian *
Easily one of the best novels (or is it actually a memoir?) that will be published this year... It is touching and funny, and full of sharp-eyed observations about family life and parents and how your childhood forms you. * The Times *
A more loving and moving tribute to its subject is hard to imagine. * Guardian *



Book Information
ISBN 9781529919653
Author Elizabeth McCracken
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Vintage
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 138g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 12mm