Gratitude

Description

'One of the finest writers of psychological fiction in France today' FRANCE MAGAZINE 'The latest literary sensation' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A cult sensation' i 'Dark, smart, strange, compelling - and tremendously French' HARRIET LANE Marie owes Michka more than she can say - but Michka is getting older, and can't look after herself any more. So Marie has moved her to a home where she'll be safe. But Michka doesn't feel any safer; she is haunted by strange figures who threaten to unearth her most secret, buried guilt, guilt that she's carried since she was a little girl. And she is losing her words - grasping more desperately day by day for what once came easily to her. Jerome is a speech therapist, dispatched to help the home's ageing population snatch and hold tight onto the speech still afforded to them. But Michka is no ordinary client. Michka has been carrying an old debt she does not know how to repay - and as her words slide out of her grasp, time is running out. Delicately wrought and darkly gripping, Gratitude is about love, loss and redemption; about what we owe one another, and the redemptive power of showing thanks.

Delphine de Vigan is the prize-winning author of bestselling No and Me, which was a Richard & Judy selection in Britain, Nothing Holds Back the Night, Underground Time and Based on a True Story. She lives in Paris. George Miller is the translator into English of all four of Delphine de Vigan's titles. He is also a regular translator for Le Monde diplomatique's English-language edition.

Poignant * Observer * A slim but powerful meditation on the nature of gratitude .... As with all the best fiction, what is ordinary has been elevated to the extraordinary ... The beating heart of this novel is the exquisite empathy it demonstrates for the elderly and the process of aging ... There is a gentle magnificence at work in its pages * Irish Times * Tender, poignant and heartfelt, this slender volume packs a huge emotional punch ... [a] generous novel that celebrates communication, connection and courage * Daily Mail * With Gratitude, she has made a bold choice of subject matter ... She is swimming energetically against the tide, because this is literary terrain neglected - not to say shunned - by many other novelists ... The novel steadily accumulates into a moving tale of how unfinished business can be dealt with without diminishing the dignity of old age * i paper * A short, elegant novel * Saga * Taut and poignant ... There's sadness in this simple tale * Sunday Telegraph * Praise for Delphine de Vigan: 'Delphine de Vigan's dark family thrillers are a cult sensation * i * A moving portrait of aging, devotion and love ... It stayed in my thoughts long after reading * Eurolit Network * The latest literary sensation ... It has people in a word-of-mouth frenzy I've not seen since Gone Girl * Daily Telegraph * One of the finest writers of psychological fiction in France today * France Magazine * You're kept reading helplessly to the desperate cliffhanger finish * Daily Mail * Taut and fascinating ... A moving tribute to the power the bonds of love * Guardian * A taut, intense novel of secrets, lies and the unknowable depths of others * Tatler * Dark, smart, strange, compelling - and tremendously French -- Harriet Lane I've never read a book that makes the complex relationship between reality and fiction both as visible, and at the same time so opaque, as here. I was captivated. * Independent * de Vigan plays with the tropes of the psychological thriller, but her work is steeped in philosophical ruminations -- Joanna Briscoe * Guardian * Frighteningly honest, precise and thrilling * Observer *