Delphi

Inviting, stylish and candid ... Pollard's future, as a novelist, is very bright indeed * The i * If you're a fan of Greek mythology, you'll enjoy Delphi ... What I loved most about this quick read is the straight-talking, frustrated narrative voice, which feels so real and relatable ... There's something strangely comforting about seeing the messiness of lockdown life through fictional eyes * Stylist * 'Set in the dark days of the 2020 lockdowns, this moodily relatable narrative introduces a protagonist who, faced with a global pandemic and a marriage in crisis, looks to the ancient art of prophecy for consolation ... This is a powerful fable about life in an ever-more unpredictable world' * Harper's Bazaar, 15 brilliant debut novels to discover now * Finally, a brilliantly funny and sad look into the heart of the pandemic lockdown... Pollard's debut novel, Delphi, is a greatest hits of COVID-era angst that manages to avoid cliches and tired complaints while being reassuringly familiar at the same time... This is the COVID novel I've been wanting to read - the COVID novel that feels brilliantly true to real life while elevating the monotonous drag of lockdown into something funny, sad and universal... [in] compact, concise language... Characters, settings and even whole scenes are drawn in quick, exquisite precision full of wit and pathos. Its intimacy reminded me of Sally Rooney and its subtle, sly humor of Miriam Toews' All My Puny Sorrows... a reassuring reflection in the darkness * San Francisco Chronicle * Lyrical and ambitious, humorous and disturbing at points, Delphi is a relatable tale ... Delphi gets to the heart of what we might not see coming when the future isn't on our radar * The Skinny * Delphi is a triumph of sly observation, wit and tragedy... dark and dangerous, disturbed and disturbing in equal measure - I loved it. * Anna Hope, author of Expectation * 'Consoling, harrowing, hilarious. I feel like it's healed me ...Pollard's narrator is so funny and so radically honest it leaves you reeling' * Luke Kennard, author of Notes on the Sonnets * Delphi is a compact miracle of a book * Evie Wyld, author of The Bass Rock * 'Bold, brave and uncompromising, Pollard has found a way to write about the last couple of years which is both truthful and enjoyable to read, which I didn't think was possible. Exhilarating, exciting, rare and beautiful.' * Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Write It All Down * 'Vivid as fireworks, Delphi explodes with the ambivalence, rage and dread of middle years lived within a world of pandemic and climate collapse. Both terrifying and exhilarating' * Doireann Ni Ghriofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat * 'Using language that charms and beguiles, Clare Pollard cleverly creates moments of the darkest deja vu, so that I was swept up into a story which I was both unnerved and reassured to recognise' * Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground * 'Clare Pollard's DELPHI delivers an urgency unlike any I've experienced. I loved this book so much; the language, the humour, the style, which reminded me of both Patricia Lockwood and Sheila Heti. A brilliant novel born of searing eloquence and sinister wit' * Jackie Polzin, author of Brood *