The Palm House

From the Women's Prize Shortlisted author of First Love and My Phantoms

De: Gwendoline Riley

From the Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of First Love

Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam have been friends for a long time. Theirs is a happy meeting of minds, with long evenings spent huddled in an ancient pub by the Thames, where they share office gossip, reflect on their teenage passions, and lament the state of the world.

Recently, though, Putnam has been harder to reach: he has lost his father, and the magazine to which he has dedicated his life has been hijacked by an insufferable new editor, Simon ‘call me Shove’ Halfpenny.

Laura has her own problems: with a prickly mother and a tricky past, and in a beautiful and indifferent city, her day-to-day life is precarious. But as Putnam starts to sink into despondency, she must try to bring him back.

A novel of enduring friendships and small mercies, The Palm House offers us Gwendoline Riley’s trademark keen observation and wit, and leaves us - somehow - with a curious sense of possibility.

PRAISE FOR GWENDOLINE RILEY

‘Riley’s prose is so electric, so alive with humour and insight and passion, that by the end you will want to stand up and cheer’ - Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting

‘Gwendoline Riley is a genius’ - Evening Standard

‘So painful, so funny and acutely observed’ - David Nicholls, author of You Are Here

‘A writer of singular vision’ - The Guardian

Reseñas de la Crítica

<b>A novelist of uncompromising brilliance</b> (Olivia Laing)

<b>What a phenomenal ear she has, and how remorselessly funny she is </b> (Kevin Barry author of Night Boat to Tangier)

<b>Gwendoline Riley&#39;s talent for making characters live, and her skill for identifying the essential moment, word or gesture, is immense</b> (Chris Power, author of Mothers)

<b>One of the most exciting novels in years</b>&hellip; Riley is as good at turning over our expectations as she is at turning sentences around&hellip; the final stretch of the book is<b> so good its almost showing off</b>, with comedy and tragedy side by side (John self)

<b>Gwendoline Riley can draw character like nobody else . . .</b><b> Her prose is so sharp you could cut yourself on it</b> (Elizabeth Macneal author of The Burial Plot)

<b>Achingly sad and subversively funny</b>&hellip; I read My Phantoms with great pleasure. It&#39;s a wonderful combination of achingly sad and subversively funny,<b> simultaneously sharp and tender, and always finely observed</b>. The dialogue is pitch perfect. The relationships are agonising. It&#39;s a subtle book, with big themes lightly drawn and precisely rendered, about how to live and how to love (Monica Ali author of Brick Lane)

<b>A writer of singular vision</b>

<b>Take up the gauntlet with Gwendoline Riley: it&#39;s worth it </b> (Alex Clark)

<b>Riley&#39;s novels get under your skin</b> (Alex Preston)

<b>Gwendoline Riley is a genius</b> (Claire Allfree)

Gwendoline Riley&#39;s unsentimental fiction hovers on the edge of comedy and bleakness (Madeleine Feeny)