The Echoes
A love story and a ghost story that ‘will stay with you forever’ (Observer)
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. This summer, discover the beautiful novel that ‘will stay with you forever’ (Observer).
‘Like all the best ghost stories, The Echoes is also a love story’ PAULA HAWKINS
‘Captivating, funny, clever’ SAMANTHA HARVEY
As a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he remains, Max watches his girlfriend Hannah in the flat they shared and begins to realise how much of her life was invisible to him.
In the months before Max’s death, Hannah is haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seems to offer the potential of a different story. Yet the past refuses to stay hidden.
A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, NEW STATESMAN AND DAILY MAIL
‘A powerful love story . . . A masterly achievement’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘I absolutely devoured this . . . Astonishing’ JON McGREGOR
‘What a discovery’ ANNE ENRIGHT
‘Compulsively readable’ FINANCIAL TIMES
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The ghost of a woman's boyfriend attempts to piece together the mysteries of her life, in the elegant latest from Wyld (All the Birds, Singing). The reader first meets Max, who was a London university professor, shortly after his death. The cause is unknown to him, and until now, so was the existence of the afterlife: "I do not believe in ghosts, which, since my death, has become something of a problem," he wryly notes. His chapters, titled "After," alternate with "Before" chapters narrated by his bartender girlfriend, Hannah, in which she reveals to the reader that she's keeping secrets from him, such as a recent abortion, and by third-person "Then" chapters, which delve into Hannah's childhood in rural Australia and eventually reveal the painful reason why she left that country and refuses to introduce her family to Max. The intricate structure and lyrical language rewards close reading, and Wyld skillfully balances the dark subject matter with moments of levity. This unsettling novel is tough to shake.
