Description

‘A gorgeous, huge-hearted, deeply moving book, wonderful from start to finish’ Sarah Waters

‘Exactly the kind of scathing, compassionate, and tragic family portrait that I love the most’ Lee Lai

‘Tender and humane. I loved this book’ Mark Haddon

A stunning graphic novel set in 1980s smalltown America about a seventeen-year-old girl and the dying stranger who moves into her family’s home

It’s spring 1985 when Emil Wilson’s father, Donald, quietly invites his colleague Jim to move in with his family. What Don doesn’t tell his wife Annemarie or his teenage daughter Lou is that Jim has AIDS.

For small-town Oregon in the eighties, a place where Lou’s treasured New York Times arrives three days late, AIDS is still a news story that happens in faraway places to faraway people. Jim is worldly, witty and quickly deteriorating. His presence in the house turns the family upside down.

As Annemarie’s fear and resentment grow, adding further strain to the family’s shaky foundations, Lou forms an unlikely friendship with Jim (and his two showbiz Pomeranians, Henny and Penny) – a friendship that pushes Lou to grow up, get out and imagine a life beyond the limits of her town.

Tender, funny and gorgeously illustrated in full colour, The Nightingales is an unforgettable portrait of an imperfect family, and a coming of age shaped by love and loss.

‘A beautiful, honest book about friendship and family’ Lizzy Stewart

‘Filled with heart and warmth and colour… stays with you long after you’ve turned the last page’ Sean Hewitt

Publisher Review

A beautiful, poignant story told with flair * Financial Times * A gorgeous, huge-hearted, deeply moving book, wonderful from start to finish. I adored it. — Sarah Waters, author of Fingersmith Tender and humane, I loved this book — Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time A singularly beautiful book, the subtlety of its layered and playful visuals a match for the emotional intricacies of this family drama and coming of age story. — Emma Donoghue, author of Room A beautiful, honest book about friendship and family — Lizzy Stewart, author of The Wreck The Nightingales is a book filled with heart and warmth and colour. Though there is loss and grief at its core, it sings about freedom and the vivid urgency of life. Inspiring and full of hope, it’s a book whose soul stays with you long after you’ve turned the last page — Sean Hewitt, author of Open, Heaven Told with the utmost care, Emil Wilson’s The Nightingales is exactly the kind of scathing, compassionate, and tragic family portrait that I love the most. I’ve urgently and insistently recommended this to every friend and loved one, so that I might have some company in laughing and crying and savouring this beautifully drawn story. — Lee Lai, author of Cannon The Nightingales is as brilliant as it is beautiful, a study in family and kindness, of doing the right thing, of not the doing the right thing, of surviving a home fraught with dysfunction. Emil Wilson shows us that under duress some people can show immense kindness and warmth while others just falter and wither. The Nightingales is a serious gem — Willy Vlautin, author of The Left and the Lucky A coming-of-age story for the ages. All ages. For anyone who has lived through loss (and who hasn’t?), The Nightingales is a blessing sung after the tears have slowed down. This book is a triumph. — Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked The Nightingales is a book awash with tenderness, with the audacity and courage to make a room for kindness, with art that performs on each and every page the beautiful and most humane acts of remembering – particular, impressionistic, incomplete, eidetic, afire with humor and compassion. Here is an extraordinary achievement that takes history and offers it to the future as the most forgiving gift. — Mark Z. Danielewski, author of House of Leaves