Katherine Carlyle - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1472150619 ISBN 13: 9781472150615

Publisher: Corsair (an Imprint of Constable & Robinson)

Synopsis

In the late 80s, Katherine Carlyle is created using IVF. Stored as a frozen embryo for eight years, she is then implanted in her mother and given life. By the age of nineteen Katherine has lost her mother to cancer, and feels her father to be an increasingly distant figure. Instead of going to college, she decides to disappear, telling no one where she has gone. What begins as an attempt to punish her father for his absence gradually becomes a testing-ground of his love for her, a coming-to-terms with the death of her mother, and finally the mise-en-scene for a courageous leap from false empowerment to true empowerment. Written in the beautifully spare, lucid and cinematic prose that Thomson is known for, Katherine Carlyle uses the modern techniques of IVF and cryopreservation to throw new light on the myth of origins. It is a profound and moving novel about where we come from, what we make of ourselves, and how we are loved.

About this title

About the Author

Rupert Thomson is the author of nine highly acclaimed novels, including The Insult, which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize, and chosen by David Bowie as one of his 100 Must-Read Books of all Time, The Book of Revelation, which was made into a feature film by the Australian writer/director, Ana Kokkinos, and Death of a Murderer, which was shortlisted for the Costa Prize. In 2010, he published a memoir, This Party Got to Stop, which won the Writers' Guild Non-Fiction Book of the Year. Rupert Thomson has contributed to the Financial Times, the Independent, and the Guardian. He lives in London.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Two days later, on September 8, I flag down a taxi on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. I have a suitcase with me, and my new umbrella. Draped over my right arm is the cashmere coat my father gave me when I turned eighteen. I’m carrying my passport, several credit cards, and a printout of my boarding pass. Round my neck is my most valuable possession—a small, silver heart-shaped locket containing two pieces of my mother’s hair, one blond and wavy, the other a glinting dark brown, almost metallic. The blond hair is what fell out when she first had chemotherapy. The brown is what grew back. I have closed my deposit account and withdrawn my savings. The money my mother left me. My inheritance. It’s enough to keep me going for a while.
            A few hours earlier, at dawn, I walked to the Ponte Mazzini, my phone in my hand. The city sticky-eyed, hungover. Still half-asleep. I stopped next to a lamppost in the middle of the bridge. White mist drifting above the river, a blurred pink sun. Leaning on the parapet, I held my phone out over the water and then let go. I thought I heard it ringing as it fell. Who would be calling so early? Massimo? Dani? I would never know. [...] Back in the apartment I downloaded Eraser and cleaned my hard drive, not just deleting my files but overwriting them so as to make retrieval more or less impossible. I left my laptop under the arch on Via Giulia with a note that said free computer. If I’m to pay proper attention, if this is to work, there’s no option but to disconnect, to simplify. From now on, life will register directly, like a tap on the shoulder or a kiss on the lips. It will be felt.

About this edition

• Publisher: Corsair (an Imprint of Constable & Robinson)
• ISBN 10: 1472150619
• ISBN 13: 9781472150615
• Binding: Hardcover