Slaughterhouse Heart - Hardcover

Knight, Afsaneh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385614128 ISBN 13: 9780385614122

Publisher: Doubleday, 2008

Synopsis

What makes a father violent? It takes a brave man to find out . . .

As a volunteer at St Margaret's Hospice, eager and helpful Meryl is looking for a role in life. The arrival of Jamie, the son of a patient, may be just what she is after. He is good-looking, young and, above all, troubled.

Jamie's father has only a few days to live, but between father and son is a lifetime of misunderstanding and unhappiness. Could the most powerful legacy Jamie faces be an inability to love? With well-meaning Meryl hovering in the background, Jamie embarks on his long dark night of the soul, facing the secrets, lies and heartbreaks behind his father's life.

Meanwhile his dying father, seemingly unconscious to it all, relives his extraordinary history, from the triumphs of his life as a boxer, to the onset of a crippling illness he doesn't understand. And in the quiet of the night, he receives strange visitors of his own....

About this title

Review

'This will have you tied to your sofa all weekend.'

From the Publisher

Afsaneh Knight is one of the most exciting young novelists I've been lucky enough to work with. Her first book, Slaughterhouse Heart, is a genuinely rare beast - a debut novel whose ambition is more than matched by the accomplishment, originality and sheer exuberance of its prose. Laying bare a lifetime of misunderstanding between a father and son, it delves deep into how our childhood experiences form the adults we become.

Jamie's father was a boxer, the 'Sidewinder', a man unable to separate the violence of the ring from his family life. Now he's been struck by a crippling illness beyond his understanding. Can his son, Jamie, forgive the man he's been so determined to separate himself from; the father he wished he'd never known?

As father and son reach to each other in those last days, the book is shot through with shards of light and love: the well-meaning hospice worker, Meryl, looking for her place in life; the guardian of the hospice keeping careful watch over her dying charge. And underlying it all is that great human truth: that, in spite of what you may wish, you can't choose who you love - love chooses you. A beautifully written, lyrical account of love and familial bonds, Slaughterhouse Heart is a moving and true book. You'll find it hard to forget, and impossible to stop recommending.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0385614128
• ISBN 13: 9780385614122
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320