Description

‘Part thriller, part treasure hunt and part love story … Profound and heartbreaking’ Sunday Times
‘A terrific, engrossing novel’ Roddy Doyle
‘A masterpiece’ Sebastian Barry
‘A rich, strange book. Very truthful and moving’ Tessa Hadley

The new novel about the transformative power of art, the weight of history and the strange connection we make with one another, from the author of The Speckled People.

The narrator of The Pages is not a human but a book: a first edition of Joseph Roth’s masterpiece Rebellion, rescued from a Nazi book-burning in 1933. In recounting its history, it tells a multitude of stories: of Andreas, the character who lives in its pages; of its current owner, a woman whose discovery of a hand-drawn map in the book begins a thrilling mystery; and of Roth himself, a writer on the run. Together, they form a compelling story about art, nationalism, the weight of history, and the strange connections between us.

‘This book simply must be read. It is magnificent’ Irish Independent

‘A powerful, powerful piece of work’ Colum McCann

Publisher Review

Praise for The Pages: 'Brilliant. It's a lovely, rich, strange book, very truthful and moving, with a beautiful ending' Tessa Hadley 'It is ... a masterpiece. The Alignment of the destructive forces of the 1920s and the 2020s in this virtuoso work are uncanny and, frankly, alarming. This book simply must be read. It is magnificent' Sunday Independent 'A classic Joseph Roth novel takes centre stage in this mix of thriller, treasure hunt and love story...profound and heart-breaking' Sunday Times 'A powerful, powerful piece of work. A wounded book making its own book. It brings so much to life - Joseph Roth, Chechnya, Germany, the art of writing, the whole notion of banning books, the lips of the past speaking to the present' Colum McCann 'A terrific, engrossing novel. I love the narrator - such a great character - and the structure is clever and carefully woven, and very satisfying' Roddy Doyle 'An ingenious conceit' John Banville 'A masterpiece. Full of great sentences. But also sort of obliteratingly moving, strange, and right' Sebastian Barry 'Wonderful. It is as if Hugo Hamilton has invented a new form' Neil Jordan, author of Carnivalesque 'Although ideas of memory, legacy and repetition - the indelible imprints of history - fill The Pages, it moves with a fast and fluid gait ... It reminds us that, even in an age when people "live in a rush to forget" (Roth's words), we must read the book of the past in order to understand the present' Boyd Tonkin, Financial Times 'The form itself - a novel narrated by a novel - is so cunningly realised that it's accepted almost immediately. It also inspires the thought: why are more novels not told like this? ... it's a fascinating work of real depth that combines biography, fiction and history to create a manifesto for the importance of literature in the times of political dismay' Business Post