The Wall - Softcover

John Lanchester

3.58 out of 5 stars

18,095 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571357512 ISBN 13: 9780571357512

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2019

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Kavanagh begins his life patrolling the Wall. If he's lucky, if nothing goes wrong, he only has two years of this, 729 more nights. The best thing that can happen is that he survives and gets off the Wall and never has to spend another day of his life anywhere near it. He longs for this to be over; longs to be somewhere else. He will soon find out what Defenders do and who the Others are. Along with the rest of his squad, he will endure cold and fear day after day, night after night. But somewhere, in the dark cave of his mind, he thinks: wouldn't it be interesting if something did happen, if they came, if you had to fight for your life?

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About the Author

John Lanchester has written four novels, The Debt to Pleasure, Mr Phillips, Fragrant Harbour and Capital, and three works of non-fiction: Family Romance, a memoir; Whoops!: Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay, about the global financial crisis; and How to Speak Money, a primer in popular economics. His books have won the Hawthornden Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the E. M. Forster Award, and the Premi Llibreter, been longlisted for the Booker Prize, and been translated into twenty-five languages. He is a contributing editor to the London Review of Books and a regular contributor to the New Yorker.

Review

"As in all good dystopian fiction, Lanchester shows us a world that could become a reality...[He] maintains measured, elegant prose-creating an assuredly human dystopian novel." -- Lucas Wittmann, TIME

"Gripping...Full of tense action and sudden reversals...Few readers will stop until they reach its final page." -- Alec Nevala-Lee, New York Times Book Review

"[A] taut tale...It's not clear what it will take to finally convince us that it's time to panic about climate change, but works of fiction such as The Wall have an important role to play." -- Stephen Dyson, Washington Post

"A writer of rare intelligence." -- Los Angeles Times

"An elegant and wonderfully witty writer." -- New York Times

"Thrilling...A topical and deftly satirical novel."-- Anna Mundow, Wall Street Journal

"Bold and confident fiction that highlights the current American and British issues of Trumpism and Brexit. "-- Los Angeles Times