Imprint
- Sceptre
- Sceptre
Fiction, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
By the Orange Prize-shortlisted Jill Dawson, a thought-provoking tale of a man who has a heart transplant and finds his feelings - and capacity for love - seem mysteriously to have changed.
LONGLISTED FOR THE FOLIO PRIZE 2015
One heart, two lives...
When a teenager dies in an accident in rural Cambridgeshire, it affords Patrick, a fifty-year-old professor, drinker and womaniser, the chance of a life-saving heart transplant. But as Patrick recovers, he has the odd feeling that his old life 'won't have him'. He becomes bewitched by the story of his heart, ever more curious about the boy who donated it, his ancestors, the Fenland he grew up in. What exactly has Patrick been given?
Praise for The Tell-Tale Heart
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Immediately engrossing . . . Dawson navigates this half-mystical territory with a freshness and wit that belie a seasoned novelist's careful skill . . . It seems that the human heart, like the richly evoked Fens which the author knows so well, holds more secrets than we might think. - The Times
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Dawson knows how to pluck the heartstrings too. The moment when Drew's mother listens to her dead son's heart beating in Patrick's chest is devastating . . . the flashback leading up to the hanging of one of Drew's forefathers is one of the highlights in a narrative that keeps you guessing. - Sunday Telegraph
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[A] searching and gently philosophical novel poised on the edge of the darkness that surrounds a human life . . . Perhaps a better life has been swapped for a lesser life; but, as this moving and intriguing novel suggests, the final sum amounts to a lot more than zero. - Literary Review
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An uncanny and atmospheric novel from a skilful storyteller. - Hilary Mantel
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A tender and thoughtful novel which explores some fundamental questions about identity and the symbolism of the heart. - Daily Mail
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Dawson . . . is an elegant but easy writer. She swiftly hooks the reader in with strong, convincing narrative voices, pacy dialogue, carefully crafted prose and an engagingly dramatic plot . . . A thought-provoking [book] about identity, relationships, fate and what we would change if given a second chance. - Sunday Express
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Not since Graham Swift's Waterland has anyone written as passionately about history, education, love and belonging in the Fen region of England. A beautifully crafted novel by an outstanding writer who gracefully enters the heart and soul of all her characters. - Caryl Phillips
Jill Dawson
Jill Dawson was born in Durham. She is the author of three novels: Trick of the Light, Magpie and Fred & Edie, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize and translated into several languages. She is also an award-winning poet and has edited five anthologies, including Wild Ways: New Stories about Women on the Road (co-edited with Margo Daly), The Virago Book of Wicked Verse and the recent Gas and Air: Tales of Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond. She taught at Amherst College and is currently the Creative Writing Fellow at University of East Anglia in Norwich. She lives in the Fens with her partner and two sons.
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