Slaughterhouse Heart
  • Published: 1 June 2009
  • ISBN: 9780552774659
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $26.99

Slaughterhouse Heart

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A stunning story of a father and son's lifetime of secrets, lies and heartbreaks - a startlingly original debut from a new and exhilarating literary talent.

What makes a father violent? It takes a brave man to find out . . .

As a volunteer at St Margaret's Hospice, eager and helpful Meryl is looking for a role in life. The arrival of Jamie, the son of a patient, may be just what she is after. He is good-looking, young and, above all, troubled.

Jamie's father has only a few days to live, but between father and son is a lifetime of misunderstanding and unhappiness. Could the most powerful legacy Jamie faces be an inability to love? With well-meaning Meryl hovering in the background, Jamie embarks on his long dark night of the soul, facing the secrets, lies and heartbreaks behind his father's life.

Meanwhile his dying father, seemingly unconscious to it all, relives his extraordinary history, from the triumphs of his life as a boxer, to the onset of a crippling illness he doesn't understand. And in the quiet of the night, he receives strange visitors of his own....
  • Published: 1 June 2009
  • ISBN: 9780552774659
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $26.99
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About the author

Afsaneh Knight

Afsaneh Knight lives in London with her husband and their two children. THE SUNSHINE YEARS is her second novel. Her first first novel, SLAUGHTERHOUSE HEART, was widely acclaimed on publication. It is available in Black Swan paperback and ebook..

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Also by Afsaneh Knight

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Praise for Slaughterhouse Heart

I was gripped from the beginning....sharp and astringent with great emotion

Margaret Forster

Knight writes with grace and empathic imagination, delivering drama with a clenched fist. A gripping literary debut.

Melbourne Age

An interesting debut by a promising young writer

Times

This will have you tied to the sofa all weekend

Time Out

An extraordinary and moving story that intuitively exposes the emotions men hate having to face

Esquire

Afsaneh Knight's debut novel packs a steady and unrelenting series of punches... It's a book about love, but not sentimentality... all the better for its lack of easy answers

Vogue

Afsaneh Knight handles a shifting narrative with dexterity...deft and promising

Spectator