SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 MAN BOOKER PRIZE
'A writer with a great future ahead of her...her prose isexquisite' LOUISE DOUGHTY, author of APPLE TREE YARD
How far would you go to belong? Fourteen-year-old Lindalives with her parents in an ex-commune beside a lake in the beautiful, austerebackwoods of northern Minnesota. The other girls at school call Linda 'Freak',or 'Commie'. Her parents mostly leave her to her own devices, whilst the otherinhabitants have grown up and moved on.
So when the perfect family - mother, father and their littleboy, Paul - move into the cabin across the lake, Linda insinuates her way intotheir orbit. She begins to babysit Paul and feels welcome, that she finally hasa place to belong.
Yet something isn't right. Drawn into secrets she doesn'tunderstand, Linda must make a choice. But how can a girl with no real knowledgeof the world understand what the consequences will be?
'One of the most intelligent and poetic novels of the year'New Statesman
'A writer with a great future ahead of her...her prose isexquisite' LOUISE DOUGHTY, author of APPLE TREE YARD
How far would you go to belong? Fourteen-year-old Lindalives with her parents in an ex-commune beside a lake in the beautiful, austerebackwoods of northern Minnesota. The other girls at school call Linda 'Freak',or 'Commie'. Her parents mostly leave her to her own devices, whilst the otherinhabitants have grown up and moved on.
So when the perfect family - mother, father and their littleboy, Paul - move into the cabin across the lake, Linda insinuates her way intotheir orbit. She begins to babysit Paul and feels welcome, that she finally hasa place to belong.
Yet something isn't right. Drawn into secrets she doesn'tunderstand, Linda must make a choice. But how can a girl with no real knowledgeof the world understand what the consequences will be?
'One of the most intelligent and poetic novels of the year'New Statesman