Jon McGregor

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE

David Carter cannot help but wish for more: that his wife Eleanor would be the sparkling girl he once found so irresistible; that his job as a museum curator could live up to the promise it once held; that his daughter’s arrival could have brought him closer to Eleanor. But a few careless words spoken by his mother’s friend have left David restless with the knowledge that his whole life has been constructed around a lie.

Reviews of So Many Ways to Begin

- ‘Extraordinary’ Daily Mail
- ‘Subtle, clever and affecting’ Independent on Sunday
- ‘A homage to ordinary people and ordinary things, to the parts of our lives that often go unspoken … moving and honest’ The Times
- ‘A book about the search for greater meaning in the strange dance of chance’ Independent
- ‘McGregor’s meticulous syntax melts into a hot flood of words … An intimate tale with penetrating things to say about the wider history of twentieth-century Britain’ Sunday Times
- ‘An absorbing and unexpectedly uplifting novel … It will leave you thinking long after you have put the book away on the shelf’ Irish Independent
- ‘A close reading of ordinary lives … tender and oftenbeautifully poetic’ Stephanie Merritt, Observer
- ‘Both compelling and convincing. A deeply rewarding read, serious and often beautiful’ Good Book Guide
- ‘McGregor is a brilliant prose stylist, and here he excels atmaking the provincial and the ordinary seem extraordinary’ Sunday Times
- ‘This is a wonderful novel; low-key but beautifully paced,scattered with extraordinarily intense moments’ Independent on Sunday
- ‘This is an unforgettable novel’ Daily Telegraph