Helen of Nowhere
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2026.
In the middle of the countryside, a realtor is showing a disgraced professor around an idyllic house. She speaks not only about the home's many wonderful qualities but about its previous owner, the mystifying Helen, whose presence still seems to suffuse every fixture. Through hearing stories of Helen's chosen way of living, the man begins to see that his story is not actually over – rather, he is being offered a chance to buy his way into the simple life, close to the land, that's always been out of reach to him. But as evening fades into black, he will learn that the asking price may be much higher, and stranger, than anticipated. Philosophically and formally adventurous, at once intimate and cosmic in scope, Helen of Nowhere asks: What must we give up in exchange for true happiness?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An embittered former English professor tries to make a fresh start in this bold outing from Goodman (The Shame). Separated from his wife, the unnamed narrator visits a country house for sale after being forced out of his job. The details of his disgrace come out gradually through his litany of grievances ("The fact was that war had been declared against me. On one side there was me, and on the other a faction of women"). At the property, the chatty listing agent tells him about the former owner, Helen, who lived off the land and turned the site into a type of commune. Here, the novel shifts into a surreal theatrical dialogue, as the realtor, now in a trance, soothes the professor's troubled soul ("Your ego is trying to make you small. But, baby, you know how to write, you know what to do.... You need to love") and, like one of the ghosts from "A Christmas Carol," shows the narrator the error of his ways, pointing out how he's overlooked his wife's professional sacrifices and tried to control her. Some readers will be frustrated by Goodman's formal experiments, which take precedence over resolving the problems set up for her characters, but her feminist refashioning of the Dickens story leads to a few satisfying moments of comeuppance for the narrator. It's a clever exercise in exploring the shifting nature of power.
