Pew

Catherine Lacey

From Shelf: Reading pile

An eerie modern tale for fans of Shirley Jackson and Sarah Hall from a young American writer hailed as one of the finest of her generation.

From the author of Biography of X, an eerie modern tale for fans of Shirley Jackson... 'I consumed it. It is the electric charge we need' Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under One Sunday morning, a mysterious silent figure is found sleeping in a church in an unnamed American town. The congregants call this amnesiac 'Pew' and seek to uncover who they are: their age; their gender, their race, their intentions. Are they an orphan, or something worse? What terrible trouble is Pew running from? And why won't they speak? Unable to agree on how to treat a person they cannot categorize - whether to adopt or imprison, help or harm them - this small town is quickly undone by Pew's terrifying silence. What remains is a foreboding, provocative, and amorphous fable about the world today: our borders and our boundaries, our fears and our woes. 'You can absolutely imagine the novel being made into a dark indie film by the Coen brothers or David Lynch' New Statesman