Description

‘Holds you captive like a blues song’ Olivia Sudjic

In San Padua you can never get the ocean out of your brain.

Anne Marie’s husband Cal left her on their first anniversary. Two years later and she is still adrift, living a precarious life of shift work and shared apartments.

When he shows up on the doorstep, clearly in trouble, she reluctantly agrees to a drink. But later that night a gun goes off in an alley near the shore and the young couple flee together, crammed into a beat-up car with their broken past, desperate to fill their lives on this long stretch of road under hot skies.

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PRAISE FOR HIGHWAY BLUE
‘Poignant, moving and cinematic’ An Yu
‘Beautiful’ Observer
‘Unforgettable’ Elaine Feeney
‘Gripping’ Stylist

Publisher Review

Poignant, moving, and cinematic, this is a story imbued with love and loss that feels at once distantly dreamlike and vividly recognisable. * An Yu, author of BRAISED PORK * Highway Blue is a beautiful, inspired rendering of the on-the-road journey. At its core is an unforgettable protagonist in Anne Marie. McFarlane has written an irresistible story of love and life's meanderings. A very gifted writer, I was entranced. * Elaine Feeney, author of AS YOU WERE * Ailsa McFarlane's prose combines the razor sharp truth telling of Ottessa Moshfegh with the troubled heart of Raymond Carver, using plain language to conjure a shockingly intense way of seeing. I've never read anything quite like it. * Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of THE THIRD RAINBOW GIRL * I loved Highway Blue - a dark, glimmering, journey deep into modern America on a knife edge between love and dependence. * Rosie Price, author of WHAT RED WAS * Hypnotic, stylish, cinematic: Highway Blue holds you captive like a blues song or incantation. * Olivia Sudjic, author of ASYLUM ROAD *