The Homemade God
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Transworld Publishers Ltd
Publishing:17th Apr '25
£20.00
This title is due to be published on 17th April, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Family is everything, even when it falls apart: discover the brand-new novel from the multi-million-copy bestselling author. Perfect for fans of Ann Patchett and Maggie O'Farrell.
'Lyrical, shrewd and, ultimately, as indecently satisfying as a four course Italian lunch, The Homemade God tells of four siblings surviving an artist father whose death obliges each to shatter and rebuild their life. My life is a little emptier now it's over.' - Patrick Gale, author of A Place Called Winter
Sparkling and addictive … Rachel Joyce is so incredibly good and wise on families and siblings. I couldn’t love it more.' - Harriet Evans, author of The Garden of Lost and Found
‘This terrific novel absolutely refuses to be cosy and provides all sorts of misdirections and a sense of foreboding throughout. A triumph of insight and empathy!’ - Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures
'Rachel Joyce is a masterful storyteller.' - Sarah Winman, Sunday Times bestselling author of Still Life
'Joyce is a fearless explorer of emotional landscape.' – Sunday Times
'If only there were more novelists like Rachel Joyce' – Telegraph
There is a heatwave across Europe.
Goose and his three sisters gather at the family's house by Lake Orta in Piedmont, Italy. Their father, a famous artist, has recently remarried a much younger woman and decamped to Italy to finish his masterpiece. Now he is dead and there is no sign of a painting.
Alhough the siblings have always been close, as they search for answers over that summer, the things they learn - about themselves, their father and their new stepmother - will drive them apart before they can come to any kind of understanding of what their father's legacy truly is.
Extraordinarily compelling, at heart this is a novel about sibling relationships and those hairline cracks that can appear within a family: what what happens when they splinter, and what it would take to mend them.
Sparkling and addictive … Rachel Joyce is so incredibly good and wise on families and siblings, pacing out a story’s secrets so that you have to read one more page. [It’s My Cousin Rachel meets The Enchanted April.] I couldn’t love it more. -- Harriet Evans, author of The Stargazers and The Garden of Lost and Found
The Homemade God is an enthralling, thought-provoking, layered novel, seamed with a delicious dark humour. And, as in all the best redemptive stories, through the rubble of grief glimmers hope, acceptance and love. Truly wonderful. -- Sarah Winman, author of Still Life
Lyrical, shrewd and, ultimately, as indecently satisfying as a four course Italian lunch, The Homemade God tells of four siblings surviving an artist father none can admit is a talentless monster and how the fallout of his death obliges each to shatter and rebuild their life. My life is a little emptier now it's over. -- Patrick Gale, author of A Place Called Winter
A new novel by Rachel Joyce is always a cause for celebration and this was no exception.
I have always found something dark in her fiction and I feel this has been played down by reviewers at the expense of the warmth and healing that is also part of her great appeal. This terrific novel absolutely refused to be cosy and provided all sorts of misdirections and a sense of foreboding throughout. At first I could hear echoes of My Cousin Rachel and feel my anxieties and sympathies being expertly manipulated as I tried to work out who I was rooting for, but it was so much more subtle than that - none of the characters are wholly good or bad or dislikeable, because Rachel always shows us why they behave as they do. The missing picture was a neat image of the siblings' struggles to see their childhood with any kind of clarity.
Another triumph of insight and empathy!
The Homemade God is a beautiful portrayal of family, art and the things we inherit from our parents, both creative and emotional. Joyce writes with great emotional acuity about the complexity of sibling relationships in a richly woven family drama, with all Joyce's trademark compassion and insight. It's a wonderful piece of storytelling. -- Hannah Beckerman, author of The Forgetting
Rachel Joyce’s latest novel is an absolute humdinger. Gripping, atmospheric, psychologically rich storytelling that gets to the absolute heart of parental love and loss. It’s also very funny. I haven’t been able to put it down. -- Emily Howes, author of The Painter’s Daughters
ISBN: 9780857528193
Dimensions: 240mm x 156mm x 40mm
Weight: 750g
384 pages