Using witness accounts, interviews and correspondence as part of the narrative, Clark’s cleverly-constructed novel delves into the shocking murder of a 16-year-old in a sleepy seaside town, exploring just how slippery the quest for truth can become.
Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2024
Do you know what happened already? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did you listen to a podcast? Did the hosts make jokes? Did you see the pictures of the body? Did you look for them?
It's been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time.
That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town.
Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec. Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the 'definitive account' of the murder - and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most notably, correspondence with the killers themselves, the result is a riveting snapshot of lives rocked by tragedy, and a town left in turmoil. The only question is: how much of it is true?
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 9780571371761
Number of pages: 448
Weight: 554 g
Dimensions: 216 x 135 x 32 mm
Edition: Main
Eliza Clark deserves 6 stars. Thank you to Faber for the ARC. I cannot wait for the release of this book in July so everyone gets to read it!
If you enjoyed Clark’s debut, Boy Parts, you are in for a real treat....
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Penance deserves to be one of the standout novels of 2023. This is a work of fiction dressed as a true crime history of the shocking murder of a schoolgirl in a rundown northern seaside town.
The bulk of the story...
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Although Clark’s second novel ‘Penance’ takes quite a different approach to her first one (don’t go into this expecting Boy Parts 2.0), her debut gives enough of a hint that she knows how to make a novel like this... More
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