The Body Lies
A novel
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4.1 • 8 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling author of Longbourn: a work of riveting psychological suspense that grapples with how to live as a woman in the world—or in the pages of a book—when the stakes are dangerously high.
“Gripping…the perfect marriage of risky literary fiction and full-on thriller.” —Maria Semple, bestselling author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette
When a young writer accepts a job at a university in the remote English countryside, it's meant to be a fresh start, away from the bustle of London and the scene of a violent assault she is desperate to forget. But despite the distractions of her new life and the demands of single motherhood, her nerves continue to jangle. To make matters worse, a vicious debate about violence against women inflames the tensions and mounting rivalries in her creative-writing class. When a troubled student starts turning in chapters that blur the lines between fiction and reality, the professor recognizes herself as the main character in his book--and he has written her a horrific fate. Will she be able to stop life imitating art before it's too late? At once a breathless cat-and-mouse game and a layered interrogation of the fetishization of the female body, The Body Lies gives us an essential story for our time that will have you checking the locks on your doors.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Still traumatized three years after being assaulted during her pregnancy near her South London home, the unnamed novelist who narrates this lyrical suspense novel from Baker (Longbourn) leaps at the offer of a university lectureship in rural Lancashire, even though it means she and her toddler son will be separated from her husband, who can't leave his teaching job in London. The move will indeed change everything but hardly the way she hopes. For starters, their rose-covered rented house redefines remote. And then there are the unanticipated challenges presented by her creative writing students in particular, the most talented but also most troubling one, Nicholas Palmer, whose seemingly autobiographical work in progress centers on a young woman who dies under mysterious circumstances. Though Nicholas starts pushing for an inappropriate personal relationship with the narrator, his writing skill makes her loathe to establish firm boundaries a decision that backfires catastrophically after a Christmas party. Soon she's fighting to save her job, her marriage, and even her life. All too plausible, Baker's powerful tale is at times heart-rending to read and impossible to put down.
