A breathtaking work of new magic realism, Lickorish Quinn’s debut follows a pregnant woman who returns to Lima to sell her ancestral home, only to find the house inhabited by ghosts that won’t let her be.
'I have seen ghosts. They will not rest. The whispers of the past are all around...'
Anais Echevarria is returning to Lima to sell her ancestral home, the notorious 'yellow house' that looms over the sprawling capital below, its history woven into the fabric of the city. But concealed within its walls are spectres from the past that demand her attention, the echoing voices of the family who lived in this grand home, and the injustices on which both the country and the house were built.
In Lima, where elapsed time coats every surface like a layer of fine dust, these ghosts will not rest until the sins of the past are atoned for. And, while Anais comes to terms with her history, the present threatens to overwhelm her. Pregnant, nervous and alone, what begins as an uneasy homecoming soon becomes a reckoning with secrets that refuse to stay buried.
Perfect for fans of Isabel Allende and Kazuo Ishiguro, this hauntingly beautiful debut will seduce, entice and mesmerise.
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
ISBN: 9780861540440
Number of pages: 384
Dimensions: 234 x 153 mm
'Once inside this decaying mansion, [Anaïs] and we are transfixed by a series of spectres from the Echeverrías' history. Lickorish Quinn's best sentences… flow through present participles that conjure sights and sounds… strange, and spectacular.' Sunday Telegraph
'A heady blend of Isabel Allende and Gabriel García Márquez, in which stories and visions proliferate dizzyingly in all directions, this is an impressive first outing.' Daily Mail
'An absolute must-read. I was glued to its pages from the first to the last and am still struggling to believe that such an accomplished creation is Quinn's debut… A wonderfully immersive experience.' Literary Flits
'Lickorish Quinn's magnificent debut enchants from first page to last... A breath-taking writer of singular voice.' Patrick Flanery, author of Absolution
'A mesmerising feat of imagination and a masterful debut.' Paul Lynch, Booker Prize-winning author of Prophet Song
'An innovative and precisely imagined exploration of identity, family, ghosts, and the intersection between personal and national history. It swept me away.' Clare Fisher, author of All the Good Things
'The Dust Never Settles is ambitious, fascinating and endlessly inventive – a time-bending, kaleidoscopic fever dream in which the living coexist with the dead, and the past with present.' Luiza Sauma, author of Everything You Ever Wanted
'Always colourful, its magical realism beautifully realised, this novel brims with Peruvian folklore and history as Anaïs negotiates ghosts from the past and comes to terms with long-buried secrets.' Daily Mail
'A marvelous, vertiginous work that mercilessly conveys the post-colonial state.' Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Wild Laughter
'Karina Lickorish Quinn is the new face of magic realism... Like its title, The Dust Never Settles will stay floating inside the reader, impossible to forget or unsee.' Laia Jufresa, author of Umami
Thank you to the publishers for this early review copy, I will confess I was entirely sold by the cover.
The genre however, is not something that I would usually pick up, so I am prepared to admit I had a few aborted...
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My thanks to Oneworld Publications and NetGalley for a review copy of this book.
The Dust Never Settles is described by the author as her ‘love letter’ to her country Peru. Opening with mythology/origin stories which...
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On the one hand, reading this book I can tell it is beautifully written in terms of the prose, but on the other hand any book where it takes pages and pages and pages for a girl to fall off a balcony isn't my cup... More
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