Description

**FROM THE AUTHOR OF 2024 BOOKER PRIZE WINNING ORBITAL**

It’s Jake’s birthday. He has lost his wife, his son is in prison and he is about to lose his past. Jake has Alzheimer’s.

As the disease takes hold of him, the key events of his life shift, and what until recently seemed solid fact melts into surreal imaginings. Is his daughter alive or long dead? And why exactly is his son in prison? There was a cherry tree once, and a yellow dress, but what do they mean? Is there anything he’ll be able to salvage from the wreckage?

From the first sentence to the last, The Wilderness holds us in its grip. This is writing of extraordinary power and beauty.

Publisher Review

This is a finely written ode to memory, identity and love * Financial Times * Touches a resounding chord of melancholy. The author, whose debut this is, is very talented * Evening Standard * An extraordinary dramatisation of a mind in the process of disintegration ... Brilliant - read it now, before it scoops up all the prizes * The Times * A stunning composition of human fragility and intensity * Guardian * Brave and intelligent...a mesmerising work * Independent *