First Person

Description

What is the truth? In this blistering story of a ghost writer haunted by his demonic subject, the Man Booker Prize winner turns to lies, crime and literature with devastating effect. About to go to trial for defrauding the banks of millions, con man and corporate criminal Siegfried Heidl offers broke writer Kif Kehlmann a deal he can't refuse- $10,000 for Kehlmann to ghost write his memoir in six weeks. As the deadline draws closer and Heidl grows increasingly erratic, Kehlmann becomes unsure if he is ghost writing a memoir or if Heidl is rewriting him - his life, his future. As tension slowly mounts, boundaries and identities blur, everything that was certain grows uncertain, and the young writer finds himself no longer sure if he is Kif Kehlmann - or a murderous criminal. 'At a time when truth is daily contorted, debauched or ignored, we require Flanagan's artful reminder of the wreckage caused by our unwillingness to say what happened.' - Washington Post 'Both comic and frightening ... Touched with the virtuosity that shone so brightly in The Narrow Road to the Deep North that are pure Flanagan ... Studded with sharp, breath-catching observations about the finite nature of life.' - Financial Times 'Powerful, funny, disturbing, moving ... Flanagan candidly and honestly confronts the raw truths of the writing life and the family life, material and spiritual poverty, love and despair and desire.' - Australian 'A triumph ... a parable for the age of Trump ... As harrowing a book as any I've read.' - Weekend Australian 'brilliant ... full of hilarious asides, this sonorous, blackly comic novel offers searing insight into our times.' - Booklist (US)

Richard Flanagan's novels have received numerous honours and are published in forty-two countries. He won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North and the Commonwealth Prize for Gould's Book of Fish. A rapid on the Franklin River is named after him.