Wayward

'One of the most wildly talented writers in America. This is Spiotta's best book yet' GEORGE SAUNDERS


'Exhilarating . . . Wayward reads like a burning fever dream. A virtuosic, singular and very funny portrait of a woman seeking sanity and purpose in a world gone mad' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW


Just as it seems she has it all, Samantha Raymond's life begins to come apart: Trump has been elected, her mother is ill and her teenage daughter is increasingly remote. At fifty-two she finds herself staring into 'the Mids' - night-time hours of supreme wakefulness where women of a certain age contemplate their lives. For Sam, this means motherhood, mortality and the state of an unravelling nation.


When Sam falls in love with a decrepit Arts and Crafts house on the wrong side of town, she buys it on a whim and flees her suburban life - and her family - attempting to find beauty in the ruins.


'A dazzling lightning bolt of a novel . .What begins as a vertiginous leap into hilarious rabbit holes ends as a brilliant meditation on mortality and time. How does she do it?' JENNY OFFILL


'Thrilling . . . At once satirical and earnest. . . she writes with sly humour and utter seriousness; a rare articulation of midlife now' CLAIRE MESSUD


'Gloriously cool, deftly assembled, brimming with mood . . . a piercing novel about what we lose and gain by when we step out of life's deepest worn grooves' VOGUE