Dear Thief

Description

A novel about female friendship, betrayal and imagination from the prize-winning author of The Wilderness and All is Song Shortlisted for the 2015 James Tait Black Memorial Prize Longlisted for the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Longlisted for the 2015 Jerwood Prize Shortlisted for the 2015 James Tait Black Memorial Prize Longlisted for the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Longlisted for the 2015 Jerwood Prize In the middle of a winter's night, a woman wraps herself in a blanket, picks up a pen and starts writing to an estranged friend. In answer to a question you asked a long time ago, she writes, and so begins a letter that calls up a shared past both women have preferred to forget. Without knowing if her friend, Butterfly, is even alive or dead, she writes night after night - a letter of friendship that turns into something more revealing and recriminating. By turns a belated outlet of rage, an act of self-defence, and an offering of forgiveness, the letter revisits a betrayal that happened a decade and a half before, and dissects what is left of a friendship caught between the forces of hatred and love.

Samantha Harvey is the author of The Wilderness, All Is Song, Dear Thief and The Western Wind. She appeared on the longlists for the Bailey's Prize and the Man Booker, and the shortlists of the James Tait Black Award, the Orange Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the Walter Scott Prize. The Wilderness won the Betty Trask Award in 2009. She is a tutor on the MA course in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

A glorious, sensuous, grown-up novel, intelligent and passionate. -- Tessa Hadley Harvey has struck gold... Perhaps because it is so intimate, so honest, so raw, Dear Thief provokes you to think about life, and Life, and your own life. -- Claire Kilroy * Guardian * Beautiful... Exhilarating... Remarkable -- James Wood * New Yorker * Compassionate, matter-of-fact and mysterious about death and its ultimate transforming... Harvey offers an incandescent vision of hope and acceptance. -- Catherine Taylor * Sunday Telegraph * A quiet, unusual book, full of sad truths. I loved this epistolary novel of friendship, betrayal and forgiveness. -- Paula Hawkins, author of THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN * Guardian * Harvey's writing is stunning: an effortless spool that winds back the layers... Brilliant. -- Kate Saunders * The Times * Singular and haunting. -- Stephanie Cross * Daily Mail *