Thirty-nine, divorced, jobless: Benedick Hunter is going nowhere, heading in the exact opposite direction he expected. So when he comes across a children's book that his mother, Laura, wrote, he decides that her life and work - haunting stories replete with sinister woods, wicked witches and brave girls who battle giants - hold the key to finding out why his own life is such a mess.
Setting out to discover why Laura killed herself when he was six, Benedick travels to the US. As he grows more obsessed with what happened to his mother, Benedick enters into a dark wood - one that is both hilariously real and terrifyingly psychological. Dark humorous and inventive, In a Dark Wood casts light on the nature of depression, genius and of the healing power of storytelling.
Amanda Craig is a British novelist, short-story writer and critic. Born in South Africa in 1959, she grew up in Italy, where her parents worked for the UN, and was educated at Bedales School and Clare College Cambridge.
After a brief time in advertising and PR, she became a journalist for newspapers such as the
Sunday Times,
Observer,
Daily Telegraph and
Independent, winning both the Young Journalist of the Year and the Catherine Pakenham Award. She was the children's critic for the
Independent on Sunday and
The Times. She still reviews children's books for the
New Statesman, and literary fiction for the
Observer, but is mostly a full-time novelist. Her novel
Hearts and Minds was longlisted for the Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction, and
The Lie of the Land was chosen as a book of the year by the
Guardian,
Observer,
Telegraph,
New Statesman,
Evening Standard,
Sunday Times and
Irish Times. Her latest novel,
The Golden Rule was longlisted for the Women's Prize 2021.
Title: In a Dark Wood
Author: Craig, Amanda
ISBN: 9780349145211
Binding:
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Publication Date: 2022-03-03
Number of Pages: 336
Weight: 0.2601 kg