Gabriel’s Lament

Shortlisted for the 1986 Booker Prize, Gabriel’s Lament has received huge critical acclaim. Fourth Estate will re-publish in the wake of Bailey’s new novel, Kitty and Virgil.

’Gabriel Harvey’s mother wanted an angel, and her son was happy to oblige. But she mysteriously abandoned him and he remained trapped in a twenty-eight year adolescence and fettered to an unexpressed grief. The discovery and naming of that grief is the subject of this most original novel… touching, beautifully paced and sustained, and quite unforgettable.’ Literary Review

’The best novel yet by one of the most careful fictional craftsmen of his generation. See how Dickensianly it grips from that sombrely punning first sentence… through all the plot’s ominous twitches and turns to the double bereavement, actual and psychic, of its conclusion: a masterly tribute in its own voice to our Shakespeare of the novel.’ Guardian