Instructions for a Heatwave
Published on 28. February 2013
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-0-7553-5878-6 (ISBN)
Description
A story of a dysfunctional but deeply loveable family reunited, set during the legendary summer of 1976, INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE by Maggie O'Farrell was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Novel Award and was a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller.
It's July 1976. In London, it hasn't rained for months, gardens are filled with aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn't come back. The search for Robert brings Gretta's children - two estranged sisters and a brother on the brink of divorce - back home, each with different ideas as to where their father might have gone. None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share.
It's July 1976. In London, it hasn't rained for months, gardens are filled with aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn't come back. The search for Robert brings Gretta's children - two estranged sisters and a brother on the brink of divorce - back home, each with different ideas as to where their father might have gone. None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share.
Reviews / Votes
The Riordans will stay in your mind long after you finish this book. They're funny, infuriating and impossible not to love. They feel like family * Irish Times * My favourite kind of novel: big-hearted, psychologically complex and utterly gripping -- Maria Semple, author of <i>Where'd You Go, Bernadette<i> Unputdownable -- Joanna Briscoe, <i>Guardian</i> Instantly appealing...magical * Daily Telegraph * Masterful...holds you on an exquisite knife-edge * Marie Claire * An author at the top of her game * Sunday Express * O'Farrell's language is lissom, airborne, mostly seamless, her characters flawed, contradictory, aggravating and instantly knowable. This is a deceptively easy, effortlessly true-feeling novel; a total delight * Metro * A quite wonderful novel...at once enthralling, page turning and atmospheric * Irish Examiner *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Headline Publishing Group
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
601 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7553-5878-6 (9780755358786)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
02/2013
Tinder Press
€5.49
Available for download
Person
Maggie O'Farrell is the author of the Sunday Times no. 1 bestselling memoir I AM, I AM, I AM, and eight novels: AFTER YOU'D GONE, MY LOVER'S LOVER, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, which won a Somerset Maugham Award, THE VANISHING ACT OF ESME LENNOX, THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE, which won the 2010 Costa Novel Award, INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Novel Award, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE, which was shortlisted for the 2016 Costa Novel Award, and HAMNET. She lives in Edinburgh.