The Night Following - Hardcover

Morag Joss

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0715638254 ISBN 13: 9780715638255

Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, 2008

Synopsis

On a blustery April day, the quiet, rather private wife of a doctor discovers that her husband has been having an affair. Moments later, driving along a winding country road and distracted perhaps by her own thoughts, perhaps blinded by sunlight, she fails to see sixty-one-year-old Ruth Mitchell up ahead, riding her bicycle. She hits her, killing her instantly. And drives away. The hit-and-run driver is never found. But the doctor's wife, horrified by what she had done, begins to unravel. Soon she turns her attention to Ruth's bereaved husband, a man staggering sleeplessly through each night, as unhinged by grief as the killer is by guilt.Arthur Mitchell does not realise at first that someone has begun watching him through his windows, worrying over his dishevelled appearance, his increasingly chaotic home. And when at last she steps through his doorway, secretly at first, then more boldly, he is ready to believe that, for reasons beyond his understanding, his wife has returned to him..."The Night Following" confirms the mastery of a writer who is both tendering and unflinching in her examination of human frailty - and of the shattering repercussions of deception.

About this title

Product Description:

Morag Joss's compelling exploration of loss and deception sees a woman wracked with guilt for the accidental murder of a retired schoolteacher, retreating into a life of nocturnal solitude and finding a strange and dangerous new way to make amends.

Review:

A dark, psychological study of mental distress ... The simplicity and clarity of Joss's writing shows how two people, overwhelmed by shock and loss, can quickly descend into instability and alienation. As a study of grief, sacrifice and the struggle for redemption this is an unsettling but absorbing read --Herald

'The Night Following' has an arresting central idea, which becomes a compelling plot, superbly developed. A woman, already rendered somewhat invisible to herself by an uncaring husband, takes a life by accident. Unable to face the idea of the visibility she will now have to endure, she plays to her strength - she disappears. But she disappears into penance; she hides herself in the ambience of the widowed husband and, as reparation, begins - without his knowledge - to take care of his devastated life. Understated, and written in Joss's - as ever - sparse and elegant prose, this is a novel about us all. It s about the way we hover between what we have to do and what we want to do and what we need to do, and it is beautifully accomplished --Frank Delaney

For her mastery of mood, her complex story lines and shrewd appreciation of the frail boundaries that divided the sane from the mad, Morag Joss has been compared to ... Ruth Rendell, Barbara Vine, and Minette Walters. Such compliments are tossed about too lightly in the publishing world, but this one is so justified it seems like an understatement --Washington Post

About this edition

• Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0715638254
• ISBN 13: 9780715638255
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368