Octave says it couldn’t have been easy for Véra, growing up with a sister as brilliant as me.
In the wake of her father’s death, Agathe leaves New York and returns to her childhood home in the French countryside, after fifteen years away. She and her sister Véra have not seen each other in all that time apart. Now, they must empty their home before it is knocked down. Véra stopped speaking when she was six, and as the pair clean and sift through a lifetime’s worth of belongings, old memories and resentments surface.
Tender, melancholic and evocative, The Old Fire is an exploration of time and memory, of family and belonging, of the unsaid and the unanswered. It is also a graceful and profound exploration of how loss and grief can live alongside life and abundance.
‘A touching, mysterious novel, imbued with the beauty and strangeness of a fairy tale.’ Ayşegül Savaş
‘A bewitching meditation on tenderness and violence, intimacy and estrangement, The Old Fire will transport you to an ancient and wild place . . . A breathtaking achievement from one of my favourite living writers.’ Tess Gunty
‘Dusapin observes her characters with anthropological curiosity and great sensitivity. Her wisdom will astound you.’ Sanaë Lemoine
‘Dusapin combines acuity and depth with straight-shooting sentences that belie their profound emotional complexity. This is a subtle, propulsive, immensely powerful novel.’ Marina Kemp
‘I experienced the novel as a clarifying force, which, in its mysterious, almost silent way, showed me things I didn’t think I knew about loneliness, about sisters, about fire and water. The forest surrounding Agathe and Véra made an impression on me as keenly as their experience of each other.’ Lara Haworth
‘Prickly and compelling.’ Lizzy Stewart
‘Haunting, enigmatic, beautiful.’ Priscilla Morris
