Nightshade
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Published:19th Mar '20
£16.99
Available to order, but very limited on stock - if we have issues obtaining a copy, we will let you know.
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£8.99(9781529112252)
Eve Laing is tired of being overshadowed by the men in her life, and wants only to live for her art, with murderous results.
'Nightshade is a glorious novel... full of twisted sexuality, art and power' Observer
Family life. Reputation. They took a lifetime to build and a second to wreck.
Eve Laing, once the muse of an infamous painter, is now — forty years later — an artist herself. But she has sacrificed her career for her family and she resents the global success of her old college roommate. When Eve embarks on her most ambitious work yet, she takes a wrecking ball to her comfortable life, jettisoning her marriage for a beautiful young lover, a drifter half her age, who seems to share her single-minded creative vision.
This brilliant and timely novel explores sexual politics and asks if the true artist must relinquish the ordinary human need for love and connection. Can the creative urge be the most destructive — even deadliest — impulse of all?
'Brilliant and biting' Financial Times
Nightshade is a glorious novel... full of twisted sexuality, art and power, about what it means to commit yourself entirely to the artistic life. The book's ending is unforgettable. -- Alex Preston * Observer *
Brilliant and biting. -- Harriet Fitch Little * Financial Times *
The drama of creation, of impending triumph or failure, and the expert rendering of the artistic process, all lift the novel to a new level...McAfee’s prose is lyrical yet sharp… the novel fascinates…and Nightshade’s questions continue to intrigue. -- Joanna Briscoe * Guardian *
McAfee’s engaging novel combines a dark plot with a zestful skewering of the contemporary art world. -- Anthony Gardner * Mail on Sunday *
Eve is a fascinating, plausible creation, both alluring and monstrous in her all-consuming self-regard. * Metro *
[A] pacy tale of marital breakdown on the London art scene… Eve is an engagingly spiky anti-heroine. -- Anthony Cummins * Daily Mail *
Annalena McAfee brings a woman’s art to such vivid life that the reader is drawn thrillingly into its creation. Art is no mere device in this novel, it is its beating heart. A lush and original novel. -- Polly Clark
Beautifully written, engrossing and provides insights into both the contemporary art scene and the individual artistic process. I loved each and every brushstroke -- Ian Rankin * Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2021* *
ISBN: 9781787301948
Dimensions: 240mm x 162mm x 30mm
Weight: 517g
304 pages