Mrs S
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- 13,99 €
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- 13,99 €
Publisher Description
An Observer Best Debut of the Year
A Granta Best Young British Novelist
‘I loved this book’ Julia Armfield
‘Exhilarating’ Monica Heisey
'Astonishing' ANDREA LAWLOR
'Should be on everyone's summer reading list' iNEWS
A powerful, sensual novel of the forbidden love between a young woman and the headmaster’s wife, unfolding across a single a heatwave summer.
In an elite English boarding school where the girls kiss the marble statue of the famous dead author who used to walk the halls, a young Australian woman arrives to take up the antiquated role of ‘matron’. There she meets Mrs S, the headmaster’s wife, a woman who is her polar opposite: assured, sophisticated, a paragon of femininity.
Over the course of a long, restless heatwave, the matron finds herself irresistibly drawn ever closer into the older woman’s world with their unspoken desire blooming into an illicit affair of electric intensity. But, as the summer begins to fade, both know that a choice must finally be made.
‘Atmospheric and daring’ GUARDIAN
‘There’s nothing else like it out there’ THE TIMES
‘Desire crackles through these pages like fire’ TELEGRAPH
‘Entirely captivating’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘Moody, generous and brilliant’ JESSIE BURTON
'Rare and thrilling' SARAH WINMAN
About the author
K Patrick is a writer based in Scotland. In 2023, they were named an Observer Best Debut Novelist and were selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. They were runner up for the Ivan Juritz Prize and the Laura Kinsella Fellowship and were shortlisted for The White Review Short Story Prize. Their poetry has appeared in Poetry Review and Five Dials, and was shortlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize in 2021. Mrs S is their debut novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An Australian immigrant navigates an English boarding school in Patrick's revelatory debut. The narrator is there to serve as "the Matron," the only name given to her in the novel. Between classes, she steals glances at Mrs. S, the headmaster's ravishing wife and a model of assured elegance. In the aftermath of a fight between a student and a visitor, members of the administration attempt damage control, providing an opportunity for the Matron and Mrs. S to spend more time together. Over the course of their work, they embark on a secret and torrid love affair despite their class differences. "Such things," the narrator thinks, "the heart cannot help but translate." As the school deals with a potential scandal involving underage drinking, the narrator's season of bliss is imperiled by Mrs. S's need to keep up appearances, prompting the narrator to vow, "I will become whatever she wants." Patrick makes palpable the compromises required by secret love, and though the romance is aching and well crafted, what emerges above all is a fascinating character portrait, that of a woman obscure to the world but radiant inside. Patrick wrings the exotic world of privilege for all that it's worth.