Helen Gordon

landfall

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Landfall

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Quirky, compelling, unpredictable . . . layers peel away almost imperceptibly and the ending is surreal yet believable

For the most part it's an uplifting, witty tale, but the ending is wonderfully unsettling, forcing us to consider whether the guidelines we follow really will lead to a more satisfying life

Compulsively readable, with a silky smooth pace

A memorable novel.  I loved the pace and verve of Alice's voyage from Shoreditch to suburbia, and the unexpectedness of the story as it swerves past the familiar into a dangerous and beautiful unknown

An intriguing debut . . . Landfall takes a gratifying left field swerve

Beautifully descriptive, with a cliff-hanger finale

What if one day you decided you'd had enough of your current life? 
 
Alice Robinson, art critic for a magazine so fashionable it's just gone out of business, finds herself agreeing to housesit for her parents. Moving back home to a suburbia she thought long behind her, she finds herself reconnecting with a different landscape, a fraught and painful past. 
 
For everywhere Alice turns she finds traces of her sister, who went missing as a teenager. Can she stop her old life intruding on the present? Should she even try? What does Alice's new future look like?

For fans of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides, Landfall is a clear-eyed, witty and warm debut novel by former Granta editor Helen Gordon, that marks the arrival of a major new literary talent. 
 
Alice Robinson, art critic for a magazine so fashionable it's just gone out of business, finds herself agreeing to housesit for her parents. Moving back home to a suburbia she thought long behind her, she finds herself reconnecting with a different landscape, a fraught and painful past. 
 
For everywhere Alice turns she finds traces of her sister, who went missing as a teenager. Can she stop her old life intruding on the present? Should she even try? What does Alice's new future look like? 
 
'An intriguing novel . . . a hipster version of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing' Metro 
 
'A memorable novel. I loved the pace and verve of Alice's voyage from Shoreditch to suburbia, and the unexpectedness of the story as it swerves past the familiar into a dangerous and beautiful unknown' Helen Dunmore 
 
'Compulsively readable' Independent on Sunday 
 
'Fine writing . . . wrapped in an arresting evocation of timelessness' Guardian 
 
'Brooding and haunting' Tatler 
 
'Uplifting, witty, wonderfully unsettling' Psychologies 
 
'Beautifully descriptive, with a cliff-hanger finale' Easy Living 
 
Helen Gordon was born in 1979 and grew up in Croydon. She currently lives in east London and is a former associate editor of Granta magazine. Landfall is her first novel.

Helen Gordon was born in 1979 and grew up in Croydon. She currently lives in east London and is a former associate editor of Granta magazine. Landfall is her first novel.

Landfall

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