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It's Jake's 65th birthday and he has Alzheimer's. All the key events of his life keep changing as he tries to grasp them, and what until recently seemed solid fact is now blurring. Is there anything he'll be able to salvage from the wreckage of his memories? The Wilderness is writing of great power and beauty from a gifted new writer.

Synopsis

It's Jake's birthday. He is sitting in a small plane, being flown over the landscape that has been the backdrop to his life - his childhood, his marriage, his work, his passions. Now he is in his early sixties, and he isn't quite the man he used to be. He has lost his wife, his son is in prison, and he is about to lose his past, for Jake has Alzheimer's.

As the disease takes hold of him, Jake struggles to hold on to his personal story, to his memories and identity, but they are becoming increasingly elusive and unreliable. What happened to his daughter? Is she alive, or long dead? And why exactly is his son in prison? What went so wrong in his life? There was a cherry tree once, and a yellow dress, but what exactly do they mean?

As Jake, assisted by 'poor Eleanor', a childhood friend with whom for some unfathomable reason he seems to be sleeping, fights the inevitable dying of the light, the key events of his life keep changing as he tries to grasp them, and what until recently seemed solid fact is melting into surreal dreams or nightmarish imaginings. Is there anything he'll be able to salvage from the wreckage? Beauty, perhaps? The memory of love? Or nothing at all?

From the first sentence to the last, "The Wilderness" holds us in its grip. This is writing of extraordinary power and beauty.

This recording is unabridged. Typically abridged audiobooks are not more than 60% of the author's work and as low as 30% with characters and plotlines removed.

About The Author

Born in Kent in 1975, Samantha Harvey has an MA in philosophy and an MA with distinction from the Bath Spa Creative Writing course in 2005. In addition to writing, she has traveled extensively, from teaching in Japan to living in Ireland and New Zealand. She recently co-founded an environmental charity and lives in Bath.

Reviews and Press Quotes

Carole Mansur, The Telegraph

“In Samantha Harvey's bold first novel, The Wilderness, a retired architect suffering from Alzheimer's struggles to piece together his past. Dementia is less a catalogue of symptoms than a route to explore the mysterious logic of memory. The flinty Sean Barrett is the ideal reader for this unsentimental insight into a neglected condition.”

Harpers Bazaar

“The book's account of the unravelling effect of Alzheimer's disease is so vivid.”

Tessa Hadley

“The Wilderness is a haunting, intelligent novel, told in a language that is never ordinary.”

The Times

“...an extraordinary dramatisation of a mind in the process of disintegration”

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Content Advisory

(What's this?)

• Violence: Mild
• Sex: Moderate
• Language: Moderate