Description

AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVELIST OF 2021
‘Seductive . . . Gorgeous’ The Times
‘A fresh perspective on an age-old tale’ Irish Times

‘I am the queen of two crowns, banished fifteen years, the famed and gilded woman, bad-luck baleful girl, mother of three small animals, now gone. I am fifty-five years old. I am Lear’s wife. I am here.’

Word has come. Care-bent King Lear is dead, driven mad and betrayed. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived: Lear’s queen. Exiled to a nunnery years ago, written out of history, her name forgotten. Now she can tell her story.

Though her grief and rage may threaten to crack the earth open, she knows she must seek answers. Why was she sent away in shame and disgrace? What has happened to Kent, her oldest friend and ally? And what will become of her now, in this place of women? To find peace she must reckon with her past and make a terrible choice – one upon which her destiny, and that of the entire abbey, rests.

Giving unforgettable voice to a woman whose absence has been a tantalising mystery, Learwife is a breathtaking novel of loss, renewal and how history bleeds into the present.

Publisher Review

Learwife is a novel that joins the likes of Pat Barker, Natalie Haynes and Margaret Atwood in seeking to unearth hidden female stories left unexplored by literary history. Its tale of pestilence and seclusion also has a powerful contemporary relevance. Written in luminous, lyrical prose, it's a book that defies easy description, being neither historical novel nor fantasy, but mining the best bits from each genre * * Observer * * With Learwife, J.R. Thorp has created an entire world out of a void. A stunning voice, hers is one you will remember, and look out for, in the years to come -- JING-JING LEE, author of the Women's Prize-longlisted HOW WE DISAPPEARED Thorp's vivid debut novel gives voice to one of fiction's most conspicuously absent women . . . Lyrical . . . Thorp's distinctive style is heady and evocative . . . Learwife slots into a strong alternative canon of feminist retellings of classic stories * * i * * Thorp has given voices to so many women who have been written out of history, whose names have been forgotten or were never uttered in the first place . . . Learwife is a story about female power; both how vast it can be, and how fragile -- CATHERINE PRASIFKA, author of NONE OF THIS IS SERIOUS Thorp is not the first to have remarked on the conspicuous absence of wife and mother in King Lear . . . but no one can have more vividly imagined her . . . A rich feat of invention * * Saga * *