Description
A small town is just a jail with no bars. Trapped, always watched, always watching, and the question is: are you the jailer, or the inmate?
In Abernathy, Claire Patel-Campbell’s debut novel, you’re dropped into Small Town America: which could be small-town England; small-town anywhere. You feel the frost in your bones, your breath freezes, and you shiver with dread. You become one with the residents: walk the same streets, drink the same bad coffee, and feel as claustrophobic, or as powerful, as one can in a tiny town with secrets.
It all starts with a body, frozen in the snow. Who she is, and why she came to be there, will be the plucked thread that may cause the whole town to unravel.
“I fell into the story and the characters: there is a swiftly developing complexity and a feel of disaster that is compelling. There is that sense of anarchy about it which I think is one of the markers of Americanness. Always odd that a country so dominated by legalities should feel so lawless.”
Alan Smith, author of Her Majesty’s Philosophers
Reviews
“I love the fact that the only one who seems to come out with his integrity intact is the gay guy! I’m no literary critic, but to me the characters were real, the sense of place was tangible and the reasons why people did daft things were convincing.”
[Received by Text]
“I’ve just finished Abernathy and it’s really affected me. Feeling very uneasy – the end really instills a sense of hopelessness and, somehow, inevitability. Such a fantastic, eerie and all-consuming book.”
[Received by Text]