Gillespie and I
by
by
Jane Harris
Signed
Published by Faber
London, 2011
New
First edition, first printing. Signed by the author (who has, as normal, initialled rather than sign in full). Fine in fine dustjacket.
"Harris’s writing is a joy, excitable yet controlled, bawdy yet respectable", Catherine Taylor, The Sunday Telegraph.
"The opening of Jane Harris's clever and entertaining second novel gives little indication of how dark it will become. It is with the most subtle sleight-of-hand that Harris brings us to the gradual realisation that we are being manipulated, and that the whole story is one of manipulation. But of whom and by whom? Multi-layered, dotted with dry black humour and underpinned by a haunting sense of loneliness, this skilfully plotted psychological mystery leaves a few threads dangling, all of them leading back to an old woman living in London in 1933 with two greenfinches in a cage and a mysterious servant/companion called Sarah Whittle, of whom she is afraid. Equally filled with shifting perspectives, this parallel drama draws the book to its quietly nightmarish end", Carol Birch, The Independent.
"a compelling, suspenseful and highly enjoyable novel, but what stands out is the way in which this narrative provokes us to think again about what we imagine, and what we hope for, and about the burdens that those hopes and imaginings impose on those around us". John Burnside, The Times.
"It is rare to read a literary novel where the storytelling is as skilful as the writing is fine, but in Gillespie and I, Harris has pulled off the only too rare double whammy - a Booker novel that I want to read again", Daisy Goodwin, The Sunday Times.
"impossible to fault....absorbing novel", Clare Clark, The Guardian.
