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Description
By the winner of the Betty Trask Prize – an atmospheric and powerfully menacing story about family, secrets and violence
'A ruthless and minutely observed reckoning with the stories, beliefs, and places we make to shelter from fear of death … Groundwater masterfully and subtly begins to re-enchant all that we have reduced' Amber Husain
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John and Liz have left the city behind to move to a remote house on the shores of the lake. Though the house is barely unpacked, Liz's sister, with her children and her husband, have come to visit for the August bank holiday weekend.
Over the course of a hot, slow weekend, tensions simmer; things go unsaid – between the two couples, between the two sisters. Their time together is punctured by visits from Jim, the solitary local warden for the area; and a group of students camping nearby draw closer and closer, finally infiltrating the house – and bringing their own tensions and hierarchies with them.
As the weekend draws to a close, the landscape reveals a violence that has long lain hidden – and the summer builds to its harrowing climax.
Taut and menacing, full of disquiet and tenderness, Groundwater is about the gulfs that lies between us and those we love – and the miraculous ways our deepest desires and fears manifest.
Product details
| Published | 17 Jul 2025 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 304 |
| ISBN | 9781526678041 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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I found in Groundwater a ruthless and minutely observed reckoning with the stories, beliefs, and places we make to shelter from fear of death. What it revealed was a world where people find themselves accidentally sheltering from life. Where humans might use one another, including the unborn, to keep the inscrutable in check, wring meaning from the outsized and mysterious, Groundwater masterfully and subtly begins to re-enchant all that we have reduced
AMBER HUSAIN
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So dreamlike and yet so tense – a heady combination beautifully balanced by McMullan. This is a novel that gets right under your skin
ELLA FREARS
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Praise for The Last Good Man: A Scarlet Letter for our times
MARGARET ATWOOD
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Recalling the smack-in-the-face technique of early Ian McEwan … Viciously captivating: frightening to be around, impossible to put aside
GUARDIAN
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A visceral and disquieting debut novel about the power of words
NEW STATESMAN
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McMullan makes highly effective use of the rugged landscape, full of unease and portents, in his creepily unsettling debut, a timely tale about the dangers of toxic rhetoric and mob rule
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