Heartbreaker
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- ¥1,500
発行者による作品情報
‘Devastating and wickedly funny … I loved it’ Sophie Mackintosh’
‘A dark star of a book’ Lauren Groff
‘I loved its every page’ Sheila Heti
It’s 1985 in The Territory and it always will be.
It’s so cold you can’t feel your feet and from here the outside world is just a dream, but two humans and one animal will show us the way. They’re each searching for someone, a woman who washed up on the shores of this far-flung town and then disappeared. To find her they will have to look deep into the darkness that lies at the edge of love.
Heartbreaker is an astounding feat of imagination with its own riotous rhythm and the resounding message that humanity can be found in the wildest of places.
Reviews
‘Heartbreaker is an incandescent flare of a novel – acrobatic, devastating, and wickedly funny. It is effortlessly sly and fresh in its language, and I loved it’ Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure
‘Heartbreaker totally bewitched me. I love its outlandishness – its sizzling energy – the bright, fierce music in every sentence’ Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks
‘A fierce exploration of memory and zeitgeist … Heartbreaker is a darkly comedic weirdo of a book that pulls the string of nostalgia from one side while unravelling it from the other’ The Paris Review
‘I read My Absolute Darling and discovered a transcendent teenage narrator in the form of Turtle Alveston. Pony Darlene Fontaine is a match for Turtle – an ordinary teenage girl in a wholly extraordinary world. Her voice will echo in your head for months – even years – to come’ Sam Baker, The Pool
‘This is a book like no other. It's eerie, it's cult-y, it's so very exciting, and I never wanted it to end’ Buzzfeed, Best Books of Fall 2018
‘Disturbed, seductive, and thrilling’ i-D
‘Behold the virtuosity of Heartbreaker! Claudia Dey has a perfect ear and the sharpest eye … devastating, unsparing and unforgettable’ Miriam Toews, author of All My Puny Sorrows
‘A whole-cloth, word-for-word triumph of imagination’ Publishers Weekly
‘This book gave me chills all the way through. It is deeply original – in its wildness, its structure, its wisdom, and its world. I floated in the perfection of its ending. I loved this novel's shining sensitivity. I loved its every page’ Sheila Heti, author of Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?
‘Beautiful … A perfect balancing act of dark and light’
Claire Cameron, author of The Bear
‘A dark star of a book, glittering with mordant humour and astonishing, seductive strangeness and grace. I am a giant fan of Claudia Dey’s wild brain’ Lauren Groff
About the author
CLAUDIA DEY is the author of the novel Stunt, a Globe & Mail and Quill & Quire Book of the Year. Her plays have been produced internationally and nominated for the Governor General’s and Trillium Book Awards. Dey’s writing has appeared in many publications including The Believer and The Paris Review. Dey has also worked as a horror film actress and cook in lumber camps across northern Canada, and is co-designer of Horses Atelier. She lives in Toronto. Heartbreaker is her UK debut.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dey (Stunt) brings readers into the unique world of "the territory," a secluded town in the upper reaches of North America founded by a charismatic cult leader. The 391 residents live in an infinitely extended 1985, listening to Billy Joel and watching Dallas reruns in complete seclusion from the outside world. After Pony Darlene Fontaine's mother leaves her and her father (known as "The Heavy"), Pony re-examines the rituals and conditions of her exile, while navigating her own girlhood. Subsequent chapters shift the perspective to the Fontaines' dog, and then Pony's crush, the boy known as Supernatural, as they join in the search for the vanished Billie Jean Fontaine. But it's not the plot, the characters, or even the premise that makes this novel so extraordinary it's the voice, which is so utterly unusual and authentic as to seem like it's really coming from a world of total isolation, turning up glittering aphorisms such as "Complaint is a form of self-degradation. Hardship is a matter of perception." And yet, Pony's inner self is as complex and vivid as any teenage girl's; at one point she thinks, "I am the softest thing going." Dey strips away the trappings of modernity to show what humans truly are at base, while eschewing the usual cult narrative. The result is a whole-cloth, word-for-word triumph of imagination.
