‘A sublime gift’ MEG MASON

A taut, ground-breaking new novel about a writer's relationship with her larger-than-life mother - and about the very nature of writing.

Ten months after her mother’s death, the narrator of The Hero of This Book walks across London on a quiet Sunday. The city was a favourite of her mother’s, and as the narrator wanders the streets, she finds herself recalling all that made her complicated mother extraordinary. Even though the woman, a writer, wants to respect her mother’s nearly pathological sense of privacy, she must decide whether making a chronicle of this remarkable life constitutes an act of love or betrayal.

* A New Yorker, Time, Washington Post, Oprah Daily and NPR Book of the Year *

‘I absolutely loved it. A moving portrayal of daughterhood…suffused with warmth and love’ MEGAN HUNTER, author of The Harpy

‘Confirms McCracken as among the finest contemporary chroniclers of everyday life… wonderful’ GUARDIAN

‘Tender, funny, heartbreaking… a writer who always delights’ RUMAAN ALAM, author of Leave the World Behind

"What could be better value than a book set over one day that you can read in one day, but that will stay in your heart and refuse to go... One of the greatest memoirs of a parent." - The Times

"Confirms McCracken as among the finest contemporary chroniclers of everyday life. Like Elizabeth Strout and Ann Patchett, she combines a blistering intelligence with deep humanity." - Guardian

"Easily one of the best novels (or is it actually a memoir?) that will be published this year... It is touching and funny, and full of sharp-eyed observations about family life and parents and how your childhood forms you." - The Times

"A more loving and moving tribute to its subject is hard to imagine." - Guardian