The Walk Home

Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, 2015

ebook / ISBN-13: 9781844089949

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Stevie comes from a long line of people who have cut and run. Just like he has.

Stevie’s been to London, taught himself to get by, and now he’s working as a labourer not so far from his childhood home in Glasgow. But he’s not told his family – what’s left of them – that he’s back. Not yet.

He’s also not far from his Uncle Eric’s house: another one who left – for love this time. Stevie’s toughened himself up against that emotion. And as for his own mother, Lindsey … well, she ran her whole life. From her father and Ireland, from her husband, and eventually from Stevie too.

This is a powerful novel about the risk of love, and the madness and betrayals that can split a family. If you cut your ties, will you cut yourself adrift?

Rachel Seiffert is an extraordinarily deft and humane writer who tells us the truth about love and about hope.

Reviews

Exquisitely pared down prose by a writer who really feels for her characters and the tainted lives they are living
Glasgow Herald
Deeply moving . . . As heart breaking as it is heart warming, this delicate and powerful novel will stay with you long after the final page
Irish Examiner
Unsparing, thoughtful and immaculately researched . . . Seiffert has a fine ear for Glasgow speech and an even better eye for images . . . a rich, nuanced portrait of a changing community . . . beautifully, sparely rendered
Guardian
Brilliantly compelling and powerful work, told in beautiful, lean prose
The Economist
The soul of The Walk Home, Rachel Seiffert's new novel, is its setting, Glasgow. The city's streets, housing schemes and tenement blocks provide not merely a backdrop, but history, colour and life
Financial Times
Intelligent and sophisticated . . . a sharp-eyed look at one corner of modern Europe in flux
The Times
Captivating . . . further proof of Seiffert's enviable talents as a writer
Daily Telegraph
Deftly drawn and perceptively observed
Daily Mail
Seiffert has a superb ear for language . . . full of intelligence, heart and compassion
Scotland on Sunday
Seiffert's writing is both tightly controlled and almost orchestral in its sweep. You feel every emotion deeply
Irish Independent