The Catch
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2025
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
‘Totally original, entirely compelling and astonishingly well crafted, The Catch solidifies Yrsa Daley-Ward as one of Britain's best and boldest voices. A dark and lyrical debut that's well worth the wait.’ Yomi Adegoke, author of Slay in Your Lane and The List
'A fantastic, shimmering work. Ysra Daley-Ward's rich exploration of Black womanhood and familial complexities is a must read.' Irenosen Okojie
‘From one of my favourite living writers, The Catch is a slippery shape-shifting delight. Yrsa’s novel is fluorescently dark and winding; brilliant in its investigation of refractions and meaning.’
Eloghosa Osunde, author of VAGABONDS!
‘Yrsa’s work is like holding the truth in your hands. A glorious living thing’ FLORENCE WELCH
A darkly whimsical debut about women daring to live and create with impunity.
Twin sisters Clara and Dempsey have always struggled to relate, their familial bond severed after their mother vanished into the Thames. In adulthood, they are content to be all but estranged, until Clara sees a woman who looks exactly like their mother on the streets of London. The catch: this version of Serene, aged not a day, has enjoyed a childless life.
Clara, a celebrity author in desperate need of validation, believes Serene is their mother, while Dempsey, isolated and content to remain so, believes she is a con woman. As they clash over this stranger, the sisters hurtle toward an altercation that threatens their very existence, forcing them to finally confront their pasts--together. In her riveting first foray into fiction, Yrsa Daley-Ward conjures a kaleidoscopic multiverse of daughterhood and mother-want, exploring the sacrifices that Black women must make for self-actualization. The result is a marvel of a debut novel that boldly asks, "How can it ever, ever be a crime to choose yourself?"
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poet Daley-Ward (Bone) makes her fiction debut with an engrossing and off-kilter tale of twin sisters and their mother, a Black woman who left them when they were infants in 1995 London. Clara and Dempsey were adopted by different families after a dead body found on the banks of the Thames was identified as their mother, Serene (their father's identity was unknown). Now, at 30, Clara is a successful novelist who drinks too much and has meaningless sex, while Dempsey is a reclusive data entry worker who relies on an unorthodox life coach. When Clara sees a woman who looks just like the Serene she knows from photos, she's convinced the woman is her and Dempsey's mother, but there's one catch: the stranger appears to be 30, the age Serena was when she disappeared. Clara and the stranger fall into an intriguing push-pull relationship; Clara hopes to take care of her, but she says Clara is the one who "seem a little lost." When Clara claims to Dempsey that their mother has reappeared, Dempsey worries that the woman is an opportunistic imposter. In chapters from the perspective of aspiring writer Serene in 1995, the reader gains insight into the reasons behind her departure. The dreamy novel is propelled by searching questions about how to be a mother and how to find fulfillment. It's a singular family drama.
