Delphi: Claire Pollard - Softcover

Pollard, Clare

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241995264 ISBN 13: 9780241995266

Publisher: Penguin, 2023

Synopsis

'Vivid as fireworks ... Both terrifying and exhilarating' Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat

'Funny and sharp ... A hungry book, looking everywhere and seeing everything' Observer

In a time more turbulent than any of us could have ever imagined, a woman is attempting to write a book about prophecy in the ancient world.

Navigating the tightening grip of lockdown, a marriage in crisis, and a ten-year-old son who seems increasingly unreachable, she becomes fixated on our many forms of divination and prediction: on oracles, tarot cards and tea leaves and the questions we have always asked as we scroll and click and rage against our fates.

But in doing so she fails to notice the future creeping into the heart of her own home. For despite our best intentions - our sacrifices and our bargains with the gods - time, certainty and, sometimes, those we love, can still slip away ...

Heartbreakingly relatable and achingly funny Delphi is both a snapshot and a time capsule, deftly capturing our pasts, our presents, and how we keep on going in a world that is ever more uncertain and absurd.

'Impressive ... What good fiction is meant to do' The New York Times

'Bold, brave and uncompromising, Pollard has found a way to write about the last couple of years which is both truthful and enjoyable to read, which I didn't think was possible' Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Everyone is Still Alive

About this title

About the Author

Clare Pollard is an award-winning poet and playwright based in London. She is the author of five poetry collections and the former Editor of the Modern Poetry in Translation magazine. Her first novel, Delphi , was published by Fig Tree in 2022. The Modern Fairies is her second novel.

From the Back Cover

This is a story about now.

It's a story about a woman, and the family she has made for herself. It's about the dramas unfolding on our screens and behind the curtains of our homes in a world more turbulent than any of us could have imagined.

But it's also about before. And what comes next. It's about the flames that have burned for centuries beneath the cracks that are opening now. About the Ancient Greeks, who sacrificed and bargained with their Gods; about prophets and oracles, tarot cards and tea leaves, and how time and certainty and, sometimes, those we love can slip away.

It's about the questions we have always asked as we scroll and click and rage against our fates - and the answers that are coming for us whether we like them or not.

Extraordinary, electrifying, irreverent and heartbreaking, Delphi is a mesmerising story of our pasts, our presents and our futures, and how we keep on living in a world that is ever-more uncertain and absurd.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241995264
• ISBN 13: 9780241995266
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208