Starred Review from www.kirkusreviews.com "Eloquent prose, rich characterizations, and knotty concepts—an emotional and intellectual tour de force."
Review by Rebekah Lyell at www.nzbooklovers.co.nz "She packs in plenty of twists and turns that you can easily spot creeping up on you, but then still manages to smack you in the face and flip everything you thought you knew upside down. I'm not normally a fan of psychological thrillers, but Chidgey, a master at playing with readers' emotions, may just have converted me.
It's a story about ethics and morals, about belonging and community, nature versus nurture and, terrifyingly, it's totally believable."
In a sinisterly skewed version of England in 1979, thirteen-year-old triplets Vincent, Lawrence and William are the last remaining residents of a New Forest home, part of the government’s Sycamore Scheme. Each day the boys must take medicine to protect themselves from a mysterious illness to which many of their friends have succumbed.
Children who survive are allowed to move to the Big House in Margate, a destination of mythical proportions, desired by every Sycamore child. Meanwhile, in Exeter, Nancy lives a secluded life with her parents, who never let her leave the house. As the government looks to shut down the Sycamore homes and place their residents into the community, the triplets’ lives begin to intersect with Nancy’s, culminating in revelations that will rock the children to the core.
Gradually surrendering its dark secrets, The Book of Guilt is a spellbinding novel from one of our greatest storytellers: a profoundly unnerving exploration of belonging in a world where some lives are valued less than others.
Catherine Chidgey is the author of In a Fishbone Church (1998), Golden Deeds (2000), The Transformation (2003), The Wish Child (2016), the 'found novel' The Beat of the Pendulum (2017), Remote Sympathy (2020), The Axeman’s Carnival (2022) and Pet (2023). Her novels have been published to international acclaim and have been shortlisted and won numerous prizes including, the Women’s Prize and, twice, the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. She lives in Ngāruawāhia and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.
432 pages
H: 234mm W: 153mm