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  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409075196
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336

The Wilderness




An extraordinary debut novel by a young writer of remarkable gifts

It's Jake's birthday. He has lost his wife, his son is in prison and he is about to lose his past. Jake has Alzheimer's.

As the disease takes hold of him, the key events of his life shift, and what until recently seemed solid fact melts into surreal imaginings. Is his daughter alive or long dead? And why exactly is his son in prison? There was a cherry tree once, and a yellow dress, but what do they mean? Is there anything he'll be able to salvage from the wreckage?

From the first sentence to the last, The Wilderness holds us in its grip. This is writing of extraordinary power and beauty.

  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409075196
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336

About the author

Samantha Harvey

Samantha Harvey is the author of The Wilderness, All Is Song, Dear Thief and The Western Wind. She appeared on the longlists for the Bailey’s Prize and the Man Booker, and the shortlists of the James Tait Black Award, the Orange Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the Walter Scott Prize. The Wilderness won the Betty Trask Award in 2009. She is a tutor on the MA course in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

Also by Samantha Harvey

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Praise for The Wilderness

A brave, intelligent book

Emma Lee-Potter, Daily Express

a forensic examination of loss and misunderstanding, a paean to the vital force of stories, and an incredibly moving look at a sword of Damocles that hangs over us all

Tom Webber, Observer

A forensic examination of loss and misunderstanding, a paean to the vital force of stories, and an incredibly moving look at a sword of Damocles that hangs over us all.

Tom Webber, Observer

A stunning composition of human fragility and intensity

Guardian

A treat for literature lovers who appreciate complexity in their novels and aren't afraid to deal with tough topics

Library Journal

An extraordinary dramatisation of a mind in the process of disintegration ... Brilliant - read it now, before it scoops up all the prizes

The Times

An extremely gifted writer

Independent on Sunday

Brave and intelligent...a mesmerising work

Independent

Closer to Virginia Woolf's meditative novels than anything else I can think of

Washington Post

Deeply original and captivating...The lyrical power of these shifting and competing narratives is matched by the absolute emotional realism of Jake's own desperate plight: his shame and anger and impotence are devastatingly recorded. And yet this is not a depressing novel, but rather one so full of urgent life that it rouses even as it terrifies.

Olivia Laing, The Observer

Harvey shows her remarkable powers of empathy and her no less remarkable literary skill. To write about a disordered mind is to court the danger of creating a work that is itself disordered. But from start to finish her control is absolute....I can think of few more distinguished literary debuts in recent years

Francis King, Literary Review

Harvey uses her precise and unostentatious style to full effect

Alexander Starritt, Times Literary Supplement

Harvey's is certainly the outstanding fictional debut to have come my way this year

Francis King, The Oldie

Harvey's novel bravely reimagines the horrors of Alzheimer's from within the ever-narrowing parameters of an architect's mind

New York Times

Impressive first novel [which] plays some original tricks with narrative

Ophelia Field, Sunday Telegraph Magazine

Intricately and delicately woven

Lucy Atkins, Sunday Times

Many novels have documented the trials of living with dementia, but this mind-bending debut throws us straight into the skewed recesses of a sufferer's brain... An exhilarating trip, but for the thought that this is a place some of us might visit one day.

Emma Hagestadt, Independent

Moving, convincing, adroit- it is a remarkably accomplished first novel and a beautiful jacket

Susan Hill, The Lady

The imagined experience of dementia is intricately, cleverly woven

Lucy Atkins, Sunday Times

This is a finely written ode to memory, identity and love

Financial Times

Touches a resounding chord of melancholy. The author, whose debut this is, is very talented

Evening Standard