Long Wave
Will be published approx. on 2. July 2026
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-78733-230-0 (ISBN)
Description
A hypnotic and haunting story of longing and survival, losing yourself and finding your family
'Daisy Johnson's best novel... a multi-generational story of secrets, obsessions, and love' Jeff VanderMeer
'Astonishingly beautiful' Kaliane Bradley
Close to the shore is the island: uninhabited, wild, with only a storm-beaten lighthouse for shelter. Ori was found there as a small child with a handful of stones, no memories and no mother. When she has a baby of her own, the job of motherhood feels immense and sleepless nights begin to shatter her grip on reality. Her head fills with the sound of stones knocking against each other and the mystery of her past begins to unravel, opening up a path to the mother she lost, and the mother she could become.
Years earlier, on a sweltering summer day, ten-year-old Ruth sees a woman and her baby walk into the river and disappear. But she is the only witness, and the water yields no trace. Ruth's mother, Edith, locks her daughter away - first to restrain these wild imaginings, and later, when she falls pregnant, to hide the shame. Ruth longs to escape and dreams of the nearby island, where she and her baby can finally be free.
'A novel of startling force' C Pam Zhang
'An unflinchingly observed treatise on the maelstrom of motherhood. Masterful' Kiran Millwood Hargrave
'A fierce and magical writer' Liz Berry
'At once devastating and heartening' Helen Phillips
'Daisy Johnson's best novel... a multi-generational story of secrets, obsessions, and love' Jeff VanderMeer
'Astonishingly beautiful' Kaliane Bradley
Close to the shore is the island: uninhabited, wild, with only a storm-beaten lighthouse for shelter. Ori was found there as a small child with a handful of stones, no memories and no mother. When she has a baby of her own, the job of motherhood feels immense and sleepless nights begin to shatter her grip on reality. Her head fills with the sound of stones knocking against each other and the mystery of her past begins to unravel, opening up a path to the mother she lost, and the mother she could become.
Years earlier, on a sweltering summer day, ten-year-old Ruth sees a woman and her baby walk into the river and disappear. But she is the only witness, and the water yields no trace. Ruth's mother, Edith, locks her daughter away - first to restrain these wild imaginings, and later, when she falls pregnant, to hide the shame. Ruth longs to escape and dreams of the nearby island, where she and her baby can finally be free.
'A novel of startling force' C Pam Zhang
'An unflinchingly observed treatise on the maelstrom of motherhood. Masterful' Kiran Millwood Hargrave
'A fierce and magical writer' Liz Berry
'At once devastating and heartening' Helen Phillips
Reviews / Votes
Long Wave, Daisy Johnson's best novel in an already spectacular career, uncovers heart-rending truths in a multi-generational story of secrets, obsessions, and love. Hopeful, tragic, beautiful, captivating, consuming. A remarkable achievement - such depth, but also what a page-turner! -- Jeff VanderMeer An astonishingly beautiful novel with an unearthly sirenic power that remains grounded in the knotty, ambivalent and profound relationships between its characters - mothers, daughters, lovers, the lost. Long Wave is a triumph -- Kaliane Bradley The power of Johnson's storytelling is elemental, fundamental, irresistible. Long Wave has the gravity of an epic and is her greatest achievement yet: a gripping mystery, a series of impeccable character portraits, and an unflinchingly observed treatise on the maelstrom of motherhood. Masterful -- Kiran Millwood Hargrave Johnson writes of motherhood as a ferocious toppling, family as lightning that brachiates and crackles through a life. This is a novel of startling force. Readers will feel Long Wave in their teeth and bones -- C Pam Zhang In Long Wave, Daisy Johnson explores caregiving and failures of caregiving. Looping through many years and many lives, this book is at once quiet and intense, at once devastating and heartening. I was carried by Johnson's potent prose, and I was moved by these intersecting perspectives -- Helen Phillips I was gripped by this haunting story of mothers and children pushed right to the edges. Daisy Johnson's world feels painfully real, and yet bristles with magic -- Becky Barnicoat Daisy Johnson is a fierce and magical writer and I love her books. In Long Wave she directs her electric attention to early motherhood, its fevers and anguish, and how dreaming is passed between generations of women. I am, as always, in awe of her -- Liz Berry Lyrical and hypnotic, Daisy Johnson's latest novel is a haunting tale of families and loss, spanning generations of women, each in turn fearful yet drawn to their own motherhood... An unsettling, propulsive read that doesn't shy away from the complexities of both being a mother, and a daughter. * Cold Magazine *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 224 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
406 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78733-230-0 (9781787332300)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
Daisy Johnson was born in 1990. Her debut short-story collection, Fen, was published in 2016. In 2018 she became the youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize with her debut novel, Everything Under. Her 2020 novel Sisters was adapted into the 2024 feature film September Says. She is the winner of the Harper's Bazaar Short Story Prize, A. M. Heath Prize and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her debut play, Viola's Room, was produced in 2024 by the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk. She currently lives in Oxford by the river.