OUR STORE IS CLOSED ON ANZAC DAY: THURSDAY 25 APRIL
Grace McCleen's first novel, The Land of Decoration, was published in 2012 and awarded the Desmond Elliott Prize for the best first novel of the year. It was also shortlisted for the National Book Award, chosen for Richard & Judy's Book Club, won the 2013 Betty Trask Prize and has been translated into nineteen languages. Grace read English at the University of Oxford and has an MA from York, and currently lives in London.
"McCleen doesn't make Elizabeth easy to like and this is part of the professor's charm. She doesn't ""do"" summer, most definitely does not do love poetry, and would like to teach Virginia Woolf a thing or two about semicolons. Particularly well captured is that streak of selfishness, often masquerading as self-sacrifice, that seems so prevalent among the gifted and the driven... an intricate tapestry in which past and present mingle to mesmerising effect... what eloquence! There are sentences here of such agile cleverness, charged with wit and beauty and enchantment. - Observer - Hephzibah Anderson It's McCleen's unflinching dedication to detail that will enchant readers. This novel has obviously been pored over, cherished and perfected...[her] graceful weaving through the present and past of her main character produces an intriguing - and original - story. - Stylist"
