Landfall

For fans of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides, Landfall is a clear-eyed, witty and warm debut novel by former Granta editor Helen Gordon, that marks the arrival of a major new literary talent. Alice Robinson, art critic for a magazine so fashionable it's just gone out of business, finds herself agreeing to housesit for her parents. Moving back home to a suburbia she thought long behind her, she finds herself reconnecting with a different landscape, a fraught and painful past. For everywhere Alice turns she finds traces of her sister, who went missing as a teenager. Can she stop her old life intruding on the present? Should she even try? What does Alice's new future look like? 'An intriguing novel . . . a hipster version of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing' Metro 'A memorable novel. I loved the pace and verve of Alice's voyage from Shoreditch to suburbia, and the unexpectedness of the story as it swerves past the familiar into a dangerous and beautiful unknown' Helen Dunmore 'Compulsively readable' Independent on Sunday 'Fine writing . . . wrapped in an arresting evocation of timelessness' Guardian 'Brooding and haunting' Tatler 'Uplifting, witty, wonderfully unsettling' Psychologies 'Beautifully descriptive, with a cliff-hanger finale' Easy Living Helen Gordon was born in 1979 and grew up in Croydon. She currently lives in east London and is a former associate editor of Granta magazine. Landfall is her first novel. Alice Robinson is having doubts about her job on a fashionable London art magazine. Agreeing to house sit for her parents, she moves back to the suburban streets of her childhood, a world of Girl Guides, Tudorbethan houses and blossom trees, and finds herself confronting some truths about the way she's chosen to live her life. How can we connect? What are the maps and manuals that show us how to live today? Exploring the landscape of the South East and the nature of life on an island, this clear-eyed, mordantly witty, warm and unsparing novel culminates in one of the most surprising and destabilizing endings you'll have read in some time. Landfall marks the arrival of a new, intriguing voice and a major literary talent Alice Robinson is having doubts about her job on a fashionable London art magazine, and her current way of life. Agreeing to house sit for her parents, she moves back to the suburban streets of her childhood, a world of Girl Guides, Tudorbethan houses and blossom trees. She reasesses her priorities and wonders how do we connect? And what are the maps and manuals that show us how to live today?