How to Survive Everything
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Saraband / Contraband
Published:1st Mar '21
Should be back in stock very soon

From a multi-award-winning author whose 2019 novel Nina X was awarded the Saltire Society Scottish Fiction award, and is currently being developed as a feature film; A satire - of 'fake news', preppers, family, and global political conspiracy - hidden within an electrifying thriller; A timely focus on individual psychology, mental health, parenting, propaganda and international disasters - tackling some of the huge political questions of our time.
The “great pandemic novel” (Ian Rankin), How to Survive Everything is an electrifying prepper thriller – one girl’s guide to navigating the collapse of everything she knows, by multi-award-winning novelist Ewan Morrison.
A New York Times Editor’s Pick. Shortlisted for the Bookmark Festival Book of the Year and the McIlvanney Prize
"I wasn’t sure there could be a great pandemic novel. Here it is." Ian Rankin
My name is Haley Cooper Crowe and I am in lockdown in a remote location I can’t tell you about.
It’s five years after the pandemic, and for most people life has returned to normal—but not for Haley Cooper Crowe and her brother Ben. Children of divorce, they live with their mother, but their dad believes there’s a new, much deadlier virus spreading out of control, and that he can only save his kids by kidnapping them and hiding them in his remote prepper hideaway.
Once confined to their off-grid “safe house”, Haley and Ben are completely cut off from civilisation. Will they make it out alive? How can they save their mother? How can they discover what’s happening on the outside?
Propulsive, electrifying, tense, and often visceral and funny, How to Survive Everything is one teenage girl’s guide to navigating the imminent collapse of her world, family and sanity.
“One of the most provocative, intelligent and original novelists working in Britain today.” -- Irvine Welsh
"I wasn’t sure there could be a great pandemic novel. Here it is." -- Ian Rankin
“[An] intriguing premise… Morrison has concocted an adventurous plot.” -- New York Times, Editors’ Picks
“A terrific and gripping story… a masterclass in storytelling … echoes of Salinger’s Holden Caulfield … Haley is a triumph … often very funny … It’s unusual for a dystopian novel to be rich in humanity, but this one is. … Morrison has been recognized as the best or certainly most interesting Scottish novelist of his generation, and this is the best book he has yet written.” -- Alan Massie * The Scotsman *
“A complex, thought-provoking drama about fake news, real fears and frayed family ties … both exciting and terrifying … a bold and compelling book by a writer whose creative risks continue to pay huge dividends.” -- Malcom Forbes * Herald *
"Urgent and exciting, harnessing our current global anxiety with a beautifully observed family drama." -- Atom Egoyan
“Terrifying … a terrifically written thriller that puts a very contemporary dysfunctional family at the heart of a very contemporary dystopian reality.” -- Lynda Obst, Producer of Interstellar
“How To Survive Everything is a gritty and (tragically) cool novel. The collision of a broken family and a global pandemic, it reads as a survival guide and feels like (is) a warning.” -- David Shields
“A riot to read … occasionally extremely funny. The plot twists and turns at a spanking pace.” -- Charlotte Metcalf * Breakout Culture *
“Acutely realised and perfectly pitched … poignant, heart-rending and hilarious … This is a beautiful book in many ways … an exploration of love in all its guises, emerging, enduring, failed, set against an all too real dystopian setting, full of broken people trying to endure. Highly recommended.” -- The Literary Shed
“One of our best living authors, his voice is unique, his style is magnificent and his imagination knows no bounds … Terrifying and harrowing, yet also deeply touching … Most certainly a novel of our time. One that will stay with me, and haunt me.” -- Anne Cater, Random Things Through My Letterbox
- Long-listed for McIlvanney Prize 2021 (UK)
- Long-listed for Bookmark Festival Book of the Year 2021
ISBN: 9781913393151
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
384 pages
International