Andrew Miller is amongst our most profound fictional talents. Now We Shall Be Entirely Free is a immersive ripping yarn of hidden literary distinction, summoning the spirit of Buchan with Booker-level writerly craft. A cracker.
Our Fiction Book of the Month for June 2019
‘The plot grips and surprises. Miller’s prose remains poetic and taut, with an eye for the telling detail… Historical or otherwise, this is fiction — storytelling — at its best.’ – The Spectator
Somerset , 1809: a ravaged soldier drags himself across the threshold of his home, destined to perish were it not the efforts of his housekeeper to save him. This is Captain John Lacroix, a combatant of the Peninsular War, a man shattered by something so unspeakable his only instinct is to flee from himself. With his healing comes command to return to his regiment: instead, Lacroix chooses the Hebrides.
Meanwhile, across the moors and fields follow his possible nemesis: the English corporal Calley and a Spanish officer by the name of Medina, under secret orders. An atrocity was committed on the British retreat to Corunna, and justice must be delivered. Lacroix is unaware of this fresh danger, consumed only by his blighted past and his current action of treason. Soon, the paths of these men must converge, and the moment of reckoning will be upon them all.
Andrew Miller, author of Ingenious Pain and the Costa Book Award-winning Pure turns his considerable talents to a story of justice and revenge in the shadow of the Napoleonic War. Lightly wearing its considerable research, Now We Shall Be Entirely Free fuses menacing thriller and historical novel into a very contemporary examination of combat’s aftermath and its price for all involved.
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 9781444784664
Number of pages: 432
Weight: 342 g
Dimensions: 196 x 130 x 29 mm
Scary, mysterious and thoughtful - the world of Jane Austen bespattered by mud, atrocity and driving rain - Andrew Marr, Books of the Year, New Statesman
A propulsive, beautifully written investigation into atrocity, guilt and new beginnings - Justine Jordan, Books of the Year, Guardian
A high grade cat-and-mouse manhunt that covers the length of Britain during the Napoleonic Wars - a sort of The 39 Steps with added malice . . . pitch-perfect - Michael Prodger, Books of the Year, New Statesman
The plot grips and surprises. Miller's prose remains poetic and taut with an eye for the telling detail . . . he excels at creating characters who are defined, not limited, by a specific time and place, not just Lacroix, Calley and Medina but the minor players too. Historical or otherwise, this is fiction - storytelling - at its best - Andy Miller, Spectator
Excellent . . . a novel of delicately shifting moods, a pastoral comedy and passionate romance story alternating with a blackly menacing thriller. It is also a book of ideas: about male violence, the impact of war and the price of freedom - Johanna Thomas-Corr, Observer
A profound exploration of culpability, written in prose that comes singing off the page . . . a compelling read and an important literary achievement - Fiona Sampson, New Statesman
Enthralling . . . Miller paints a richly detailed portrait of a society in some ways familiar, in others impossibly strange - Suzi Feay, Financial Times
I much enjoyed Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, in which Andrew Miller returned to more orthodox historical fiction after 2015's The Crossing and triumphantly proved there's plenty of life in the old form yet - James Walton, Books of the Year, Spectator
Both a ripping yarn and a skilful mediation on absence . . . The pacing of his story is excellent; his style is crisp; his apprehension of pain is arresting; and his ability to show people trembling at the edge of unreason is compelling - Andrew Motion, Guardian
In his luminous prose, Costa Prize winner Andrew Miller conjures three very different men, but their experiences have all been traumatising. Manhunt and pilgrimage, the tale unfolds into a gripping and, ultimately, surprising exploration of the inner battleground - Elizabeth Buchan, Daily Mail
Miller recreates the past so vividly that reading the novel is never less than a fully immersive experience . . . particularly enjoyable and satisfying - The Times
Since the publication in 1997 of his first novel . . . his books have revealed a powerful imagination at work, and one that is also rooted in the precisely yet poetically described realities of daily life . . . In his new novel, he succeeds in creating an involving, suspenseful drama and a moving portrait of a man in search of redemption from the violence of his past - Sunday Times
Miller's beautiful sentences are a joy to read and his engrossing novel, teeming with vivid historical detail, is as suspenseful as any thriller - Mail on Sunday
The tension is so finely balanced between hunter and hunted that the alternating chapters ultimately form one beautifully integrated whole, whilst the historical setting is perfectly realised . . . a magnificent novel - Irish Independent
Andrew Miller can spin a ripping yarn with the skill and assurance of a master . . . He fills his novel with vividly etched characters and has a way with words that delights, surprises and enthrals. There is never a dull sentence or commonplace description - Sunday Express
The joy of reading an Andrew Miller novel is his obvious passion for story and sensual language, and his ability to interweave the two seamlessly. The former is an often-forgotten art form in the contemporary novel, which often seeks to impress rather than entertain, but the latter is what makes him one of the most impressive novelists at work today - Irish Times
This exceptional novel is hypnotically immersive, as though the reader has been genuinely transported to an era when time moved more slowly and life was more dense and extraordinarily vivid - Tablet
Brilliant . . . The narrative is framed by beautiful writing and driven by guilt at what men are driven to in extremis. Spectacular - Metro
By the end of the opening sentence of Andrew Miller's new novel, we're already knee-deep in fictional territory he has made his own . . . Miller has an extraordinary gift for conjuring actuality from the past - Daily Telegraph
It successfully combines elements of old-fashioned adventure story with a moving study of a man in search of personal redemption - Nick Rennison, Books of the Year, BBC History Magazine
Extraordinary; his writing seems to discover, or perhaps creates, additional dimensions to the world, and in the reader - Sarah Hall
The sort of novel I always long for and rarely find. Anything Andrew Miller writes, I will read, and Now We Shall Be Entirely Free is an absolute masterclass: observant, generous, beautiful prose, with a thrillingly plotted tale at its heart. Proof if any were needed that truly literary fiction can make for compulsive, suspenseful and joyous reading - Imogen Hermes Gowar, author of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock
A layered, riveting novel from a skilled storyteller - Summer Reads, The Times
A beautifully observed historical thriller . . . With writing that's elegiac and enthralling, this is a chase story with a wry edge and a romantic heart - AnOther Magazine
He is a very stylish, almost painterly writer, and he has Hilary Mantel's gift for historical reconstruction, for describing the past without making it seem like a wax museum . . . A subtheme of this novel, where one of the main characters can't see and the other can't hear, is unknowability, how hard it is to make sense of the world . . . things are never quite what you expect, and history is altogether stranger than most accounts suggest. What makes Miller's own account so riveting is its alertness to wonder and unpredictability - New York Times Book Review
Captain John Lacroix is scarred by the experience he had in the Peninsular War against Spain, he has seen the full horror of and feels responsible for, what armies at war are capable of inflicting on innocents and... More
This is a slow burner of a book which creeps into your soul and makes a home there! It is so beautifully written it would be a crime to rush through it anyway and I found myself dawdling through the later pages, half... More
The book centres on John Lacroix, a young man who joined the army to help defeat the forces of Napoleon. He left as an officer, in all his finery, thinking war would be an adventure - he returns a broken man,... More
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