In the middle of the countryside, a realtor is showing a disgraced professor around an idyllic house. She speaks not only about the home’s many wonderful qualities but about its previous owner, the mystifying Helen, whose presence still seems to suffuse every fixture. Through hearing stories of Helen’s chosen way of living, the man begins to see that his story is not actually over – rather, he is being offered a chance to buy his way into the simple life, close to the land, that’s always been out of reach to him. But as evening fades into black, he will learn that the asking price may be much higher, and stranger, than anticipated. Philosophically and formally adventurous, at once intimate and cosmic in scope, Helen of Nowhere asks: what must we give up in exchange for true happiness?
‘Wildly original… unpredictable and funny…. Is Helen of Nowhere a ghost story? A satire about back-to-the-land philosophies? A comedy about male obsolescence? Or, conversely, a skewering of woke identity politics? Perhaps it’s just a fable about burn-out or the human hunger for love. It could be all of these…. This is fiction that will sharpen your attention to the world, make it more intense. It reminds us that we don’t have to understand or like everything about a book to get something out of it. In fact, allowing ourselves to feel stimulated and perplexed feels like intellectual freedom and an awakening of human potential.’
— Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Times
‘[T]he ideas at work in this exhilarating and surprising novel are far from limited to the low-hanging fruit of campus misogyny, and the narrative soon gives way to meditations on truth and identity…. The incantatory second half of the novel raises compelling and resonant questions about how we see ourselves and others in our present moment of atomization and disconnection.’
— Arin Keeble, Financial Times
Paperback.
