Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
Secrets and lies linger in the very walls of the solid old Normandy house where Therèse and Leonie, French and English cousins, grow up after the war. Intrigued by adults’ guilty silences and the broken shrine they find in the woods, the girls weave their own fantasies, unwittingly revealing the village’s buried shame, a shame that will haunt them both for the rest of their lives.
Secrets and lies linger in the very walls of the solid old Normandy house where Therèse and Leonie, French and English cousins, grow up after the war. Intrigued by adults’ guilty silences and the broken shrine they find in the woods, the girls weave their own fantasies, unwittingly revealing the village’s buried shame, a shame that will haunt them both for the rest of their lives.
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Reviews
Subtle and persuasive
An intense piece of writing, in which the transfigured mundane world of recipes, parental prohibitions and almost ritualised gossip is posed against official purity and religiosity, and shown to be superior.
Remarkable and beautifully written
A brave and richly imagined novel, full of thrilling set pieces. The new prestige it seems likely to earn for one of our best writers is long overdue.