Delirious

THE AWARD-WINNING, WORD-OF-MOUTH NEW ZEALAND BESTSELLER

NOMINATED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD

WINNER OF NEW ZEALAND'S JANN MEDLICOTT ACORN PRIZE

'I was dazzled by this book's intimacy, truth and complexity. It has everything I truly love in fiction'
Charlotte Wood, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Stone Yard Devotional

It's time. Mary, an ex cop, and her husband, retired librarian Pete, have decided to move into a retirement village. They aren't falling apart, but they're watching each other - Pete with his tachcychardia and bad hip, Mary with her ankle and knee.

Selling their beloved house should be a clean break, but it's as if the people they have lost keep returning to ask new things of them. A local detective calls with new information about the case of their son, Will, who was killed in an accident forty years before. Mary finds herself drawn to consider her older sister's shortened life. Pete is increasingly haunted by memories of his late mother, who developed delirium and never recovered.

An emotionally powerful novel about families and ageing, Delirious dramatises the questions we will all face, if we're lucky, or unlucky, enough. How to care for others? How to meet the new versions of ourselves who might arrive? How to cope? Delirious is about the surprising ways second chances come around.

'Delirious made me laugh, think, weep and actually beat my breast. A masterpiece'
Elizabeth Knox, author of The Absolute Book

'Delirious rearranged me. Utterly absorbing, moving, brilliant'
Emily Perkins, author of Lioness