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Book Cover for: Dear Thief, Samantha Harvey

Dear Thief

Samantha Harvey

Nominee:Women's Prize for Fiction -Fiction (2015)

From acclaimed Booker Prize Winner, Orange Prize and Guardian First Book Award finalist Samantha Harvey, a stunning novel of female friendship, betrayal, and revenge

"You were going to work your way into my marriage and you were going to call its new three-way shape holy," writes the unnamed narrator of Dear Thief.

The thief is Nina, or Butterfly, who disappeared eighteen years earlier and who is being summoned by this letter, this bomb, these recollections, revisions, accusations, and confessions.

"Sometimes I imagine, out of sheer playfulness, that I am writing this as a kind of defence for having murdered and buried you under the patio."

Dear Thief is a letter to an old friend, a song, a jewel, and a continuously surprising triangular love story. Samantha Harvey writes with a dazzling blend of fury and beauty about the need for human connection and the brutal vulnerability that need exposes.

"While I write my spare hand might be doing anything for all you know; it might be driving a pin into your voodoo stomach."

Dear Thief is a rare novel that traverses the human heart in a striking and indelible way.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Ecco Press
  • Publish Date: Apr 7th, 2015
  • Pages: 272
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.00in - 5.30in - 0.60in - 0.40lb
  • EAN: 9780062415844
  • Categories: LiteraryPsychologicalWomen

About the Author

Harvey, Samantha: -

Samantha Harvey is the author of five novels, Orbital, which won the Booker Prize, The Western Wind, Dear Thief, All Is Song, and The Wilderness, which won the Betty Trask Prize, and one work of nonfiction, The Shapeless Unease. Her books have been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Guardian First Book Award, and the James Tait Black Prize, as well as longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Baileys Women's Prize. She lives in Bath, UK, and teaches creative writing at Bath Spa University.

Praise for this book


Praise for "The Wilderness"
Longlisted for Man Booker Prize
Finalist for the Orange Prize
Winner of the Betty Trask Prize
Shortlisted for the "Guardian" First Book Award
Winner of the AMI Literature Award
"Closer to Virginia Woolf's meditative novels than anything else I can think of. . . . This is . . . Mrs. Dalloway prose." --Carolyn See, "The Washington Post Book World"
"[A] brave imagining of [Alzheimer's].... There are moments of clarity; there is the persistence of desire; there are enduring long-term memories that remain after there is no capacity to recall what was for breakfast or if there was breakfast or what the thing called breakfast is." --"The New York Times"
"A stunning composition of human fragility and intensity." --"The Guardian" (London)
"Harvey infuses the text with compassion. [The Wilderness] conveys the importance of dignity and respect for those we love, no matter what their affliction." --"Las Vegas Review-Journal"
"The Wilderness is Samantha Harvey's first novel, but it feels like a mature work, as well crafted and as cryptic . . . as an ancient boat found preserved in the peat of the northern-England moors where the book is mostly set." --"Bookforum"
"A really exciting debut is as rare as it ever was. Samantha Harvey's first novel is an extraordinary dramatization of a mind in the process of disintegration. . . . Brilliant." --"The Times" (London)
"Very moving. . . . Touches a resounding chord of melancholy. . . . [Harvey] makes you realize that memory can never quite be trusted." --"The Scotsman"
"A haunting, intelligent novel, crowded with powerful characters, told in a language that is never ordinary, but always clear and elegant." --Tessa Hadley, author of "The Master Bedroom" and "Sunstroke and Other Stories"
"Raises intriguing queries about the nature of memory--why we remember what we do, and why we forget." --"Ottawa Citizen"
"A brave andd
Praise for "The Wilderness"
"Closer to Virginia Woolf's meditative novels than anything else I can think of. . . . This is . . . Mrs. Dalloway prose." -- Carolyn See, "The Washington Post Book World"
"[A] brave imagining of [Alzheimer's].... There are moments of clarity; there is the persistence of desire; there are enduring long-term memories that remain after there is no capacity to recall what was for breakfast or if there was breakfast or what the thing called breakfast is." -- "The New York Times"
"A stunning composition of human fragility and intensity." -- "The Guardian" (London)
"Harvey infuses the text with compassion. [The Wilderness] conveys the importance of dignity and respect for those we love, no matter what their affliction." -- "Las Vegas Review-Journal"
""The Wilderness" is Samantha Harvey's first novel, but it feels like a mature work, as well crafted and as cryptic . . . as an ancient boat found preserved in the peat of the northern-England moors where the book is mostly set." -- "Bookforum"
"A really exciting debut is as rare as it ever was. Samantha Harvey's first novel is an extraordinary dramatization of a mind in the process of disintegration. . . . Brilliant." -- "The Times" (London)
"Very moving. . . . Touches a resounding chord of melancholy. . . . [Harvey] makes you realize that memory can never quite be trusted." -- "The Scotsman"
"A haunting, intelligent novel, crowded with powerful characters, told in a language that is never ordinary, but always clear and elegant." -- Tessa Hadley, author of "The Master Bedroom" and "Sunstroke and Other Stories"
"Raises intriguing queries about the nature of memory--why we remember what we do, and why we forget." -- "Ottawa Citizen"
"A brave and intelligent crafting of narrative . . . . A mesmerizing work of patient compassion, bearing Jake deep into the vortex." -- "The Independent" (London)
"This is a finely written ode t