The Course of the Heart: An extraordinary, genre-bending classic
Aug 2025 · Serpent's Tail
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infoThis book will become available on August 7, 2025. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
The cult classic novel from the author of Climbers and The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again
With an introduction by bestselling author of Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield
'A spare textual elegance and closure-denying restraint that impresses and fulfils' IAIN BANKS
On a hot May night, three Cambridge students carry out a ritualistic act that changes their lives. Decades later, none of the participants can remember what transpired; but their clouded memories bind them together. Unable to move on, Pam Stuyvesant has epilepsy and is plagued by sensual visions. Her husband Lucas believes that a dwarfish creature is stalking him, and invents histories to soothe Pam's fears. Self-styled Sorcerer Yaxley becomes obsessed with a terrifyingly transcendent reality. The narrator is seemingly the least effected participant in the ritual: he is haunted by the smell of roses, and his guilt as he attempts to help his friends escape the torment that has engulfed their lives.
Strange, dreamlike and moving, The Course of the Heart is an examination of the edges of humanity where we lie, hide, hurt and heal.
'A gloriously intelligent, beautifully written and thoroughly maddening book' INDEPENDENT
With an introduction by bestselling author of Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield
'A spare textual elegance and closure-denying restraint that impresses and fulfils' IAIN BANKS
On a hot May night, three Cambridge students carry out a ritualistic act that changes their lives. Decades later, none of the participants can remember what transpired; but their clouded memories bind them together. Unable to move on, Pam Stuyvesant has epilepsy and is plagued by sensual visions. Her husband Lucas believes that a dwarfish creature is stalking him, and invents histories to soothe Pam's fears. Self-styled Sorcerer Yaxley becomes obsessed with a terrifyingly transcendent reality. The narrator is seemingly the least effected participant in the ritual: he is haunted by the smell of roses, and his guilt as he attempts to help his friends escape the torment that has engulfed their lives.
Strange, dreamlike and moving, The Course of the Heart is an examination of the edges of humanity where we lie, hide, hurt and heal.
'A gloriously intelligent, beautifully written and thoroughly maddening book' INDEPENDENT
About the author
M. John Harrison is the author of, among others, the Viriconium stories, The Centauri Device, Climbers, The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, Signs of Life, Light and Wish I Was Here. He has won the Boardman Tasker Prize, the James Tiptree Jr Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. He lives in Shropshire.
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