{"product_id":"the-palm-house-9781035021055","title":"The Palm House","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of \u003ci\u003eFirst Love \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eMy Phantoms\u003c\/i\u003e comes a novel of enduring friendships and small mercies \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003efrom\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e one of the most acclaimed writers of her generation.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEdmund Putnam, days away from the end of his 50th year, finds that his solitary life is about to change. The magazine to which he has given his best decades faces closure, and Edmund will likely lose his job this coming Monday morning. But before this fateful prospect can arrive there are others, no less daunting: a date, and a birthday.  Putnam's great friend, Laura, worries for him. She is a decade or so younger, employed by the same magazine but with the prospect of escape; she has been offered the opportunity to leave the country and work abroad. But can she bear to take it?  Meanwhile Putnam's father, Martin, has found a new lease of life. He has fallen in love with a waitress at a local cafe, and decided to rescue her from her brutish husband.  Unfolding over the course of a single weekend, as these three drifters assess their fates and their futures, THE PALM HOUSE reads between the lines of modern life in a country slipping back into its past, and presents Gwendoline Riley at her heartfelt, bravura best.\u003ch4\u003eDetails\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cp\u003eISBN13: 9781035021055\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFormat: Paperback \/ softback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNumber of Pages: 224\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEdition: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublication Date: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublisher: Pan Macmillan\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublication City, Country: London, United Kingdom\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDimensions (cm): 23.4(H)x15.3(L)x1.8(W)286\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWeight (gm): 286\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch4\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h4\u003eGWENDOLINE RILEY was born in London in 1979. She is the author of My Phantoms, which was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize; of First Love, shortlisted for the Women's Prize for fiction, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for fiction; and of Cold Water, Sick Notes, Joshua Spassky, and Opposed Positions. She has also won a Betty Trask Award and a Somerset Maugham Award, and has been shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. In 2018, The Times Literary Supplement named her as one of the twenty best British and Irish novelists working today.\u003ch4\u003eReviews\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Palm House\u003c\/i\u003e might be my favourite novel of 2026 so far . . . It’s very funny and so full of pathos and horror . . . I wanted to go back to the beginning and start again -- Johanna Thomas-Corr, \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis pristine book confirms Riley's position among the finest novelists working today. Her sentences are crystalline and perfect, and her attention to the world is always acute and occasionally tender - I love this book, and am awed by Riley's accomplishment -- Sarah Perry, award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe Essex Serpent\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDeath of an Ordinary Man\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRiley writes with a poet’s control, her prose so purely distilled that it appears artless . . . What is new is the gentle delicacy she brings to the deep and unshowy solace of friendship, moments of tenderness so exquisitely and exactly rendered that they are almost too intense to bear * The Guardian *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis goes straight onto my list of favourite modern novels\u003c\/b\u003e * The Sunday Times *\u003cbr\u003eThe expres­sion “at the height of a nov­el­ist’s powers” is ban­died around too often, but it was the phrase that came to mind read­ing \u003ci\u003eThe Palm House\u003c\/i\u003e. Here is a writer who has now worked for two dec­ades on hon­ing her work, and with uncom­prom­ising ambi­tion. As a res­ult, Riley has only got bet­ter and bet­ter – and I’m sure I won’t be the only one to say that \u003ci\u003eThe Palm House\u003c\/i\u003e is her best novel yet * Daily Telegraph *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOutstandingly brilliant \u003c\/b\u003e -- Claire-Louise Bennett, award-winning author of \u003ci\u003ePond\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBig Kiss, Bye-Bye \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Palm House \u003c\/i\u003eon almost any page will give you more delight than most other novels published this year\u003c\/b\u003e -- John Self, \u003ci\u003eThe Critic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSharp, funny and painfully precise, this is a quietly devastating portrait of modern life\u003c\/b\u003e * i news *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eGwendoline Riley is one of my favourite contemporary writers and \u003ci\u003eThe Palm House\u003c\/i\u003e is the book of hers I love the most\u003c\/b\u003e -- Sheila Heti, award-winning author of \u003ci\u003ePure Colour\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFans of Gwendoline Riley's blunt observation and razor-sharp prose will be thrilled with her new book, \u003ci\u003eThe Palm House\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e -- Barry Pierce, \u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eGwendoline Riley can draw character like nobody else . . .\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e Her prose is so sharp you could cut yourself on it\u003c\/b\u003e -- Elizabeth Macneal author of \u003ci\u003eThe Burial Plot\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAchingly sad and subversively funny . . . \u003c\/b\u003eI read \u003ci\u003eMy Phantoms\u003c\/i\u003e with great pleasure. It's a wonderful combination of achingly sad and subversively funny,\u003cb\u003e simultaneously sharp and tender, and always finely observed\u003c\/b\u003e. The dialogue is pitch perfect. The relationships are agonising. It's a subtle book, with big themes lightly drawn and precisely rendered, about how to live and how to love -- Monica Ali, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of \u003ci\u003eBrick Lane\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMesmerizing . . . Structurally it’s fluid, but this is a narrative whose power derives from precision. The details and dialogue are witty, occasionally sinister, and redolent of possibility along with a pungently English melancholy * Mail on Sunday *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eGwendoline Riley's talent for making characters live, and her skill for identifying the essential moment, word or gesture, is immense\u003c\/b\u003e -- Chris Power, author of \u003ci\u003eMothers\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis novel can be read in one sitting; it is so engaging that it proves impossible not to . . . Extraordinary * Irish Times *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHer superpower as a novelist is her hyper-sensitivity to people’s capacity to reveal their worst selves in the things they say\u003c\/b\u003e * The Observer *\u003cbr\u003eA sly dark comedy about a long friendship between two prickly people enduring in the face of the world’s disappointments * The Independent *\u003cbr\u003eSpikily precise writer Riley reached a new level of acclaim with \u003ci\u003eMy Phantoms\u003c\/i\u003e, shortlisted for The Rathbones Folio Prize. Forever alive to dialogue and character dynamics, \u003ci\u003eThe Palm House\u003c\/i\u003e’s London-set tale of an enduring friendship is highly anticipated * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRiley’s novel can be read as parallel narratives of trauma and the ways we avoid confronting it . . . A series of often dazzlingly perceptive portraits\u003c\/b\u003e * Literary Review *\u003cbr\u003eGwendoline Riley's most recent novel, \u003ci\u003eMy Phantoms\u003c\/i\u003e, saw her compared to Chekhov. For her follow-up, \u003ci\u003eThe Palm House\u003c\/i\u003e, she turns her attention to friendship, focusing on two middle-aged friends whose relationship is tested by the trials of their everyday lives -- \u003ci\u003eBBC Culture\u003c\/i\u003e, The 40 most exciting books to look forward to in 2026\u003cbr\u003eExpect crystalline prose, an unflinching eye, and thoughtful digressions on life and art -- \u003ci\u003eFive Books\u003c\/i\u003e, Cal Flyn’s Must-Read Novels of Early 2026\u003cbr\u003eI’ll follow Gwendoline Riley anywhere -- \u003ci\u003eLiterary Hub\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLit Hub\u003c\/i\u003e’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026\u003cbr\u003eA regular fixture on fiction prize shortlists . . . Her next book is intriguing, eavesdropping on two old friends Laura and Edmund who meet up in old London pubs and are dealing with grief, precarity and a nightmare media boss -- \u003ci\u003eShortlist\u003c\/i\u003e, Our 25 most anticipated fiction books for 2026\u003cbr\u003eA new Gwendoline Riley novel might strike a sort of fantastic fear into the heart — may we never be so precisely perceived! Her observation of the minutiae of (awkward, solipsistic, desperate) human behaviour makes her characters painfully real, all their idiosyncrasy and damage laid bare * Review31 *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Palm House\u003c\/i\u003e once again demonstrates Gwendoline Riley's keen eye for detail * The Scotsman *\u003cbr\u003eThe prizewinning author deploys language to devastating effect as she revisits her theme of women plagued by brittle relationships * FT *\u003cbr\u003eShe is a writer as thoroughly unsentimental as J.M. Coetzee or Michel Houellebecq. Unlike the latter she doesn’t embed her human dramas in superstructures of melodramatic social upheaval, and unlike the former she doesn’t make efforts to sound the overtones of history. But like both of them she eschews euphemism and \u003cb\u003ewrites in a stark, exacting prose that achieves a clarity of vision when it comes to human behavior\u003c\/b\u003e. Among American writers, Riley resembles Lydia Davis for \u003cb\u003ethe fine calibration and fragility of her sentences\u003c\/b\u003e * New York Times *\u003cbr\u003eOne has the sense, reading Riley, of being involved in an alarming experiment, that of reading the world without the slightest mercy or compromise. . . . We truly see her characters, in their descriptive nakedness, alive and horridly vivid * The New Yorker *","brand":"Gwendoline Riley","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48544243187929,"sku":"9781035021055","price":34.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0502\/9530\/8441\/files\/9781035021055.jpg?v=1776452003","url":"https:\/\/www.arielbooks.com.au\/products\/the-palm-house-9781035021055","provider":"Ariel","version":"1.0","type":"link"}