Our Fathers
Rebecca Wait
(Author)
Description
Set on a remote Scottish island, this “piercing, vivid, and humane story depict[s] the long aftermath of extreme domestic violence” (Kirkus Reviews).
Nobody knows why John Baird, a quiet family man, took it into his head one day to pick up a shotgun and murder his wife and children. On the Scottish island of Litta, violent crime is unheard of, and the killings send shockwaves through this tiny community in which the Bairds were well-known and liked.
Tommy, the only survivor of the terrible crime, has come back to Litta many years later. Faced with this reminder of the horrors that took place amongst them, the community must ask themselves again if anyone can truly know their neighbors. What drives a man to murder his own family? And to what extent is Tommy his father’s son?
With unflinching candor and powerful prose, Our Fathers interrogates the damaging legacy of toxic masculinity, and reveals how family can both wound us and help us heal.
Product Details
| Publisher | Europa Editions |
| Publish Date | February 11, 2020 |
| Pages | 240 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Digital (delivered electronically) |
| EAN/UPC | 9781609455729 |
About the Author
Rebecca Wait grew up in the Oxfordshire countryside and read English at Oxford University. She is the author of prize-winning short stories and plays, as well as critically acclaimed novels The View on the Way Down (2013) and The Followers (2017). She writes and teaches in London.
Reviews
Praise for Our Fathers
“A piercing, vivid, and humane story depicting the long aftermath of extreme domestic violence.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This is a beautifully realised novel, touching on the fallibility of memory and the unknowability of families, and gripping in its intensity. Outstanding.” —Daily Mail
“Thoughtful and wrenching.” —Publishers Weekly
Praise for Rebecca Wait’s The Followers
“A restrained tour-de-force, profoundly unsettling, brilliantly executed, and deeply humane.” —EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL, author of Station Eleven
“Smooth and magnetic . . . The translucent simplicity of Wait’s prose lends a crystalline quality to the scenes, whether humdrum, horrific or, ultimately, healing.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This novel lingers with you, and for those who have suffered similar things, it echoes truth.” —Matt Haig, The Guardian
"The tenderness and the transformative nature of the ending are truly moving." —The Independent
"Rebecca Wait describes the world of The Followers with such vividness that I dreamt about her cold, misty moorland, and with such tenderness that the ending brought tears to my eyes." —Alison Moore, Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Lighthouse
"The novel has a brooding tension that threatens no good to come, building to a page-turning finish." —John Harding, author of Florence & Giles
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