The Kiss: A Secret Life (Paperback)

by Kathryn Harrison

Format: Paperback 224 pages

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From the bestselling author of THE BINDING CHAIR, a searing memoir of a four-year affair between the author and her father. 'My father takes my face in his hands. He tips it up and kisses my closed eyes, my throat. I feel his fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck. I feel his hot breath on my eyelids.' Kathryn Harrison's parents married aged 17 but were forced apart by disapproving parents within a year. By which time their only child, Kathryn, had been born. She was not to see her father again until she was ten. Instantly, the two were attracted; they even looked alike. By the time Kathryn was twenty the two had fallen into a passionate affair. Her relationship with her mother had never been easy and now there was this added complication, made worse by the obvious love which still existed between her parents for each other. In this beautiful, honest and shocking account of the years of her affair with her father, Kathryn Harrison confirms her growing reputation as one of the most significant literary voices of our times.

Book details

Published
28/03/1998

Publisher
Fourth Estate Ltd

ISBN
9781857027082



Publisher and industry reviews

Jacket review

* 'One of the most startling books you are ever likely to read.' Observer * 'Powerfully written, utterly compelling.' Mail on Sunday * 'Shocking, terrifyingly honest -- and beautifully written.' Elle * 'Disturbing, provocative and articulate. One of the most talked-about books of the year.' Cosmopolitan * 'The Kiss is remarkable for its candour, but also for its elegance, its sense of morality, and its generosity of spirit.' Sunday Telegraph

UK Kirkus review

American novelist Kathryn Harrison's highly unsettling The Kiss is an account of her infatuation and affair with her long-lost father. Beautifully told, with a lightness and economy of language, this bitter, distressing story reveals a family steeped in repression and guilt, easy prey to a man whose emotional needs were all-consuming. As secrets go, they don't get much more devastating than this. Review by ROSEMARY GORING, literary editor of Scotland on Sunday. (Kirkus UK)

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