Our Fathers: A gripping, tender novel about fathers and sons from the author of I'm Sorry You Feel That Way

Rebecca Wait

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What kind of man kills his own family?

A gripping, tender novel about fathers and sons from the highly acclaimed author

A Guardian crime and thriller book of the year 2020'This is a beautifully realised novel, touching on the fallibility of memory and the unknowability of families, and gripping in its intensity. Outstanding' Mail on Sunday

'A spectacular novel' SpectatorWhen Tom was eight years old, his father took a shotgun and shot his family: his wife, his son and baby daughter, before turning the gun on himself. Only Tom survived.

He left his tiny, shocked community on the island of Litta and the strained silence of his Uncle Malcolm's house while still a young boy. For twenty years he's tried to escape his past. Until now.

Without knowing how to ask, he needs answers - from his uncle, who should have known. From his neighbours, who think his father a decent man who 'just snapped'. From the memories that haunt the wild landscape of the Hebrides.

And from the silent ones who know more about what happened - and why - than they have ever dared admit.

By turns gripping, beautiful, devastating and tender, Our Fathers is a story about violence and redemption, control and love. With understated compassion and humour, Rebecca Wait gives a voice to the silenced and to the silences between men of few words.

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Praise for Our Fathers: A gripping, tender novel about fathers and sons from the author of I'm Sorry You Feel That Way

  • A restrained tour-de-force, profoundly unsettling, brilliantly executed, and deeply humane - Emily St John Mandel on The FollowersA great surging shout of a novel - Guardian, on The FollowersSuspenseful, compassionate, remarkable - Sunjeev Sahota, author of The Runaways, on The Followers

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Rebecca Wait

Rebecca Wait

Rebecca is the author of five novels, most recently Havoc. Her previous novel, I'm Sorry You Feel That Way, was a Times, Guardian, Express, Good Housekeeping, BBC Culture Book of the Year and it was shortlisted for the Nota Bene Prize. Her third novel, Our Fathers, received widespread acclaim and was a Guardian book of the year and a thriller of the month for Waterstones.

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