Description

‘A brilliantly conceived and audacious novel from one of our most consistently intelligent and beguiling writers’ William Boyd
‘Surefooted and emotionally generous … A serious achievement’ Guardian
‘Masterful’ Telegraph
‘A revelation’ Spectator

The new novel from the Booker shortlisted author of The Northern Clemency

An order is issued. A population may not meet, or touch or speak to each other. They stay inside, and the reality of a few streets in a capital city emerges. An underground river is discovered; an urban grove of pomeloes emerges. The imagination reaches out, and makes sense of the world. By the sea, two men walk into a future of uncertain violence.

There is time now to see the human dramas within a hundred yards (an abduction, a quiet breakdown, an outbreak of violence, a young mind beginning to stretch itself); to wait for the weather to change; to understand that what lies underneath this part of the city are seasonally wet pastures and woodlands.

Written in four parts, To Battersea Park explores the strata and sediment of a single place and time. It shows what brings us together, through love, through the clashes of what we want to do and what the world wants to do with us. Set in a large crowded city where we are forbidden to approach strangers, this is about what we share: humanity, imagination, and the love that emerges from many acts of telling.

‘Electrifying … works like this… allow the imagination to roam free and wild’ Observer

‘Wise, ingenious and passionate’ TLS

‘Magnificently succeeds in excavating the sedimentary layers of a neighbourhood in lockdown to reveal – hilariously, tenderly, shockingly – how we exist both in intimacy and ignorance of those we live among’ Financial Times

‘An engrossing human drama’ The Times

‘An imaginative tour de force’ Mick Herron, author of Bad Actors

‘An utterly engrossing skein of narratives, beautifully written and often disturbing’ Lissa Evans, author of V for Victory

Publisher Review

Praise for Philip Hensher: 'Hensher is fascinatingly good on how social transformation manifests itself in the textures, colours and manners of a culture... extremely funny, but also deeply humane' Sunday Times 'Hensher is an anatomist of familial tensions ... He has an impeccable eye for nuances of character and setting' The Times 'Hensher has a forensic eye for detail, providing nightmarish glimpses of the everyday...engrossing, amusing and moving' Independent '[Hensher] brilliantly animates the lives of neglected people during big historical events' The Times '[Hensher] illuminates an entire social world with skill, humour and tenderness' Daily Mail 'Rather like Mary Gaitskill, [Hensher] specializes in extending sympathy to his creations and then suddenly withdrawing it, giving them enough rope to hang themselves with' TLS