Description
Book Synopsis‘Brilliant . . . A deeply unsettling, excellent read’ - Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under
'A potent contemporary fable . . . riveting' - Guardian
‘Genuinely thrilling . . . one long beautiful scream’ - Evie Wyld
Lucy lives with her husband Jake and their two boys. Her life is devoted to her children, her days mapped out by their finely tuned routine.
Until a man calls one afternoon with a shattering message: his wife has been having an affair with Lucy’s husband. He thought she should know.
Lucy is distraught. She decides to stay with Jake, if only for the children’s sake, but in order to even the score, they agree that she will hurt him three times. Jake will not know when the hurt is coming, or what form it will take. And so begins a delicate game of crime and punishment, from which there is no return . . .
Told in dazzling, musical prose, The Harpy by Megan Hunter is a dark, staggering fairy tale, at once mythical and otherworldly and fiercely contemporary. It is a novel of love, marriage and its failures, of power and revenge, of metamorphosis and renewal.
‘Utterly compelling . . . precise and darkly truthful’ Esther Freud
Trade ReviewThe Harpy is
brilliant. Hunter imbues the everyday with apocalyptic unease. A
deeply unsettling, excellent read. -- Daisy Johnson, Booker shortlisted author of
Everything UnderIn
The Harpy, Hunter has articulated female rage in a way that lives on in your bones and in your gut.
A genuinely thrilling read, one long beautiful scream. -- Evie Wyld
Megan Hunter’s
potent contemporary fable about the enduring taboo of female fury becomes especially relevant.
Every bit as riveting as her debut The End We Start From . . . the ensuing drama blends mythic motifs with pointed swipes at modern motherhood’s double binds. * Guardian *
The Harpy is an
almost perfect book. The premise is so simple, and the execution so
flawless . . .
I've talked about it more than anything else I've read so far this year: I love explaining the set-up to friends and watching their eyes widen. It's so dark and so much fun. -- Kristen Roupenian, author of
Cat PersonHunter writes
viscerally and incisively about the taboos of female desire and rage . . . [a]
striking, pared-down modern myth * Daily Mail *
A fiery tale of infidelity . . . she manages to elevate her story to something that is at once rooted in the everyday and effortlessly transcends it . . .
a gripping, psychologically astute account of a relationship in free-fall * Scotsman *
Sentence after sentence made my skin bump. Not just with what the sentence said, but because the writing was so very, very good. It's
a brilliant piece of work. -- Cynan Jones, author of
CoveUtterly compelling . . . so
precise and darkly truthful. I thought it succeeding in illuminating - with flair and originality - the damage done by betrayal. -- Esther Freud
I was utterly spellbound. Her
dark humour and pointillist prose puts her in league with Lydia Davis and Jenny Offil, masterfully rendering the emotional shock of a protagonist finding her life has become story. -- Olivia Sudjic, author of
SympathyA
sharp, timely and darkly funny novel about maternal love and sacrifice, and the incandescent rage that festers beneath it. Hunter's writing is
beautiful and spare, uncanny and hilarious. I utterly loved it. -- Luiza Sauma, author of
Flesh and Bone and WaterA
beautifully written, viscerally disturbing novel that turns the narrative of the cheated-on wife on its head -- Laura Kaye, author of
English AnimalsMegan Hunter effortlessly
compels us to feel both heartbreak and the momentary gratification of revenge . . . devastating in its evocation of the expense and sometimes fatal strain of passion, grief, and rage.’ -- Susanna Moore, author of
In the CutThe Harpy is a
taut and lyrical novel about cosily calibrated lives coming spectacularly undone.
Compulsively absorbing yet otherworldly, both a fever dream and a gorgeous and alarming howl of rage. -- Sharlene Teo, author of
PontiIn
hungry, restless prose, Megan Hunter
tears apart the seam between motherhood and the monstrous. She confronts the fear of female anger and asks us what happens when pain that has been swallowed through generations begins to rush to the surface. -- Jessica Andrews, author of
SaltwaterOn one level it is the
psychological excavation of a suburban marriage on the rocks, on another,
a spell to summon primeval feminine power. Above all, it is prose informed by poetry . . . a
brilliant and eviscerating work of literary fiction * Review 31 *
With shades of Carmen Maria Machado and Karen Russell, Hunter turns in an unforgettable magical realist story of power, revenge, and transformation. * Esquire *
A
blisteringly tense, brilliant book about
adultery, betrayal, motherhood and revenge -- Amanda Craig
