Nonfiction

Nonfiction is Julie Myerson's new novel about mothers: what it is like to have one, what it is like to be one. In it, a mother narrates the relationship with her child who is struggling with addiction.

'Some writers are given their material as a form of destiny, and Julie Myerson's nonfiction is a startling recognition of that destiny. This glitteringly painful novel, so steady and clear in its analysis of addiction, creativity, and the factors that determine female and familial identity, is the book [Myerson] was intended to write, and she has elevated it into a template for the re-making of self by means of a transformative and radical honesty' Rachel Cusk

'Her best novel yet' The Times
'Incredibly compelling' Daily Mail
'Incandescent' The Observer

Two parents stand by powerlessly as their only child seems intent on destroying herself. Meanwhile the mother - a novelist - attempts to understand her uneasy, unresolved relationship with her own mother.

Weaving between childhoods past and present, as well as a current narrative laced with temptation and betrayal, this is the delicate journey of a mother, daughter, wife and author struggling to make sense of her world.

But can a writer ever be trusted with the truth of her own story?

Clear-eyed, self-lacerating and at times frighteningly direct, Julie Myerson's latest novel explores maternal love as the emotional foundation we both crave and fear. A howl of fury, as well as a moving love letter from a mother to a daughter, this is a book about damage, addiction, recovery and creativity.

'I wolfed it all down - it's just so incredibly compelling' Daily Mail

'Glitteringly painful' Rachel Cusk

'A compulsive read. Searingly honest and raw' Deborah Moggach