A chilling and atmospheric ghost story by the author of Birdcage Walk, Exposure and The Lie
Helen Dunmore was an award-winning novelist, children's author and
poet who will be remembered for the depth and breadth of her
fiction. Rich and intricate, yet narrated with a deceptive
simplicity that made all of her work accessible and heartfelt, her
writing stood out for the fluidity and lyricism of her prose, and
her extraordinary ability to capture the presence of the past.
Her first novel, Zennor in Darkness, explored the events which led
D. H. Lawrence to be expelled from Cornwall on suspicion of spying,
and won the McKitterick Prize. Her third novel, A Spell of Winter,
won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and she went on
to become a Sunday Times bestseller with The Siege, which was
described by Antony Beevor as a 'world-class novel' and was
shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year and the Orange
Prize. Published in 2010, her eleventh novel, The Betrayal, was
longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Orwell
Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and The Lie in 2014 was
shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and
the 2015 RSL Ondaatje Prize.
Her final novel, Birdcage Walk, deals with legacy and recognition -
what writers, especially women writers, can expect to leave behind
them - and was described by the Observer as 'the finest novel Helen
Dunmore has written'. She died in June 2017, and in January 2018,
she was posthumously awarded the Costa Prize for her volume of
poetry, Inside the Wave.
You won't find plastic fangs or Dulux blood in Helen Dunmore's
perfect little ghost story ... Dunmore conveys a shivery menace and
concealed tragedy; this is the most elegant literary flesh-creeper
since Susan Hill's The Woman in Black.
*The Times*
This is a haunting and exquisitely crafted tale where the line
between the real and the imaginary becomes blurred.
*Glamour*
The Greatcoat is a well-written ghost story that observes the
traditions of the genre without subsiding into pastiche ... Dunmore
uses motifs and themes as a kind of Greek chorus ... these are
subtly deployed, and enhance the atmosphere in this disturbing,
thoughtful novel.
*The Literary Review*
An atmospheric and accomplished ghost story.
*Woman & Home*
A taut, elegantly written ghost story… Wielding her skill at
bringing history to life in the small, dismal details of the
post-war period, and showing off her talents as a poet in her
mesmerising depiction of possession, Dunmore is on fine form
here.
*The Sunday Times*
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