Dear Thief - Softcover

Harvey, Samantha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062415840 ISBN 13: 9780062415844

Publisher: Ecco Press, 2015

Synopsis

From acclaimed Orange Prize and Guardian First Book Award finalist Samantha Harvey, a stunning novel of female friendship, betrayal, and revenge

"You were going to work your way into my marriage and you were going to call its new three-way shape holy," writes the unnamed narrator of Dear Thief.

The thief is Nina, or Butterfly, who disappeared eighteen years earlier and who is being summoned by this letter, this bomb, these recollections, revisions, accusations, and confessions.

"Sometimes I imagine, out of sheer playfulness, that I am writing this as a kind of defence for having murdered and buried you under the patio."

Dear Thief is a letter to an old friend, a song, a jewel, and a continuously surprising triangular love story. Samantha Harvey writes with a dazzling blend of fury and beauty about the need for human connection and the brutal vulnerability that need exposes.

"While I write my spare hand might be doing anything for all you know; it might be driving a pin into your voodoo stomach."

Dear Thief is a rare novel that traverses the human heart in a striking and indelible way.

About this title

Review:

Praise for "The Wilderness"
Longlisted for Man Booker Prize
Finalist for the Orange Prize
Winner of the Betty Trask Prize
Shortlisted for the "Guardian" First Book Award
Winner of the AMI Literature Award
"Closer to Virginia Woolf's meditative novels than anything else I can think of. . . . This is . . . Mrs. Dalloway prose." --Carolyn See, "The Washington Post Book World"
"[A] brave imagining of [Alzheimer's].... There are moments of clarity; there is the persistence of desire; there are enduring long-term memories that remain after there is no capacity to recall what was for breakfast or if there was breakfast or what the thing called breakfast is." --"The New York Times"
"A stunning composition of human fragility and intensity." --"The Guardian" (London)
"Harvey infuses the text with compassion. [The Wilderness] conveys the importance of dignity and respect for those we love, no matter what their affliction." --"Las Vegas Review-Journal"
"The Wilderness is Samantha Harvey's first novel, but it feels like a mature work, as well crafted and as cryptic . . . as an ancient boat found preserved in the peat of the northern-England moors where the book is mostly set." --"Bookforum"
"A really exciting debut is as rare as it ever was. Samantha Harvey's first novel is an extraordinary dramatization of a mind in the process of disintegration. . . . Brilliant." --"The Times" (London)
"Very moving. . . . Touches a resounding chord of melancholy. . . . [Harvey] makes you realize that memory can never quite be trusted." --"The Scotsman"
"A haunting, intelligent novel, crowded with powerful characters, told in a language that is never ordinary, but always clear and elegant." --Tessa Hadley, author of "The Master Bedroom" and "Sunstroke and Other Stories"
"Raises intriguing queries about the nature of memory--why we remember what we do, and why we forget." --"Ottawa Citizen"
"A brave andd

Praise for "The Wilderness"
"Closer to Virginia Woolf's meditative novels than anything else I can think of. . . . This is . . . Mrs. Dalloway prose." -- Carolyn See, "The Washington Post Book World"
"[A] brave imagining of [Alzheimer's].... There are moments of clarity; there is the persistence of desire; there are enduring long-term memories that remain after there is no capacity to recall what was for breakfast or if there was breakfast or what the thing called breakfast is." -- "The New York Times"
"A stunning composition of human fragility and intensity." -- "The Guardian" (London)
"Harvey infuses the text with compassion. [The Wilderness] conveys the importance of dignity and respect for those we love, no matter what their affliction." -- "Las Vegas Review-Journal"
""The Wilderness" is Samantha Harvey's first novel, but it feels like a mature work, as well crafted and as cryptic . . . as an ancient boat found preserved in the peat of the northern-England moors where the book is mostly set." -- "Bookforum"
"A really exciting debut is as rare as it ever was. Samantha Harvey's first novel is an extraordinary dramatization of a mind in the process of disintegration. . . . Brilliant." -- "The Times" (London)
"Very moving. . . . Touches a resounding chord of melancholy. . . . [Harvey] makes you realize that memory can never quite be trusted." -- "The Scotsman"
"A haunting, intelligent novel, crowded with powerful characters, told in a language that is never ordinary, but always clear and elegant." -- Tessa Hadley, author of "The Master Bedroom" and "Sunstroke and Other Stories"
"Raises intriguing queries about the nature of memory--why we remember what we do, and why we forget." -- "Ottawa Citizen"
"A brave and intelligent crafting of narrative . . . . A mesmerizing work of patient compassion, bearing Jake deep into the vortex." -- "The Independent" (London)
"This is a finely written ode t

Book Description:

A novel about female friendship, betrayal and imagination from the prize-winning author of The Wilderness and All is Song

Longlisted for the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0062415840
• ISBN 13: 9780062415844
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272