‘And then when the drugs, incredibly, worked (they don’t always), when the text started re-appearing on the page, I felt a strong desire to get writing, partly because I knew I didn’t have endless time, and partly because I wanted to lose myself in another story. I needed to get out of my head, with its rather grim and sad preoccupations, and try out someone else’s for a change.’
More on the W&N blog here
Excellent news. Her is in the Audible UK top 10. Audio sample here
‘It feels both economical and satisfying to put places so familiar I had almost stopped noticing them into my fiction: the stepped terraces of Highgate New Town, the arctic cliff of the Whittingon’s facade after dark, Pond Square’s dappled shade on a hot summer afternoon.’ See more at kentishtowner
‘Harriet Lane is a deft conjurer of menacing middle-class scenarios. In her 2012 debut, Alys, Always, the unfulfilled Frances exploits a car crash victim’s dying words to insinuate her way into the lives of the dead woman’s literary family. It earned Lane comparisons with Patricia Highsmith and Anita Brookner.
‘This second novel also involves envious women pressing their noses up to the window of another’s glossier-seeming life. In Her, a taut revenge drama, the same events are recounted in alternate chapters from the separate perspectives of two women in their late 30s who have met by apparent accident.’
Read the full review here
Harriet is taking part in Alex Clark’s Rising Stars event at 2.30 (venue: Stoke Newington Library).
More details here
Early review of Her from Learn This Phrase: ‘Her doesn’t grab you by the collar and refuse to let go: it creeps up on you and worms its way into your head until it feels like a part of your reality. Nina and Emma are so fully-formed and well-realised that I find it almost impossible to believe they aren’t out there somewhere, living these lives.’
Full review here
Harriet Lane’s debut Alys, Always was longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and shortlisted for the
Writers’ Guild Best Fiction Book Award. Her second novel Her, a Waterstones Book Club pick, was shortlisted for the Encore Award for best second novel.