Forrests

Dorothy Forrest is immersed in the sensory world around her; she lives in the flickering moment. From the age of seven, when her odd, disenfranchised family moves from New York City to the wide skies of Auckland, to the very end of her life, this is her great gift and possible misfortune.Through the wilderness of a commune, to falling in love, to early marriage and motherhood, from the glorious anguish of parenting to the loss of everything worked for and the unexpected return of love, Dorothy is swept along by time. Her family looms and recedes; revelations come to light; death changes everything, but somehow life remains as potent as it ever was, and the joy in just being won't let her go.In a narrative that shifts and moves, growing as wild as the characters, The Forrests is an extraordinary literary achievement. A novel that sings with colour and memory, it speaks of family and time, dysfunction, ageing and loneliness, about heat, youth, and how life can change if `you're lucky enough to be around for it'.

Praise for Novel About My Wife: 'A fascinating portrait of a marriage, in all its labyrinthine complexity and tenderness. A beautiful, shocking book, it had me gripped from its very first sentence', `A frightening tale of delusion ... fast and inexorable ... Perkins draws out the emotional tension and the thematic parallels while keeping the action tight and gripping', `A sensuous and compassionate study of a doomed relationship, which suggests that love can survive the vicissitudes of modern life; and, perhaps, death itself', `Chilling ... A disturbing, sad and brilliantly paced novel'

Emily Perkins is the author of Not Her Real Name, a collection of short stories which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and the novels Leave Before You Go, The New Girl and, most recently, Novel About My Wife, winner of the Believer Award. Emily Perkins lives in New Zealand.