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The Dumb House
  • Published: 4 January 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446412237
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 224

The Dumb House

Formats & editions
EBook
4 Jan 2011
Paperback
15 Aug 2015
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John Burnside's first novel, his profoundly disturbing and beautifully written story of scientific curiosity gone awry

As a child, Luke’s mother often tells him the story of the Dumb House, an experiment on newborn babies raised in silence, designed to test the innateness of language.

As Luke grows up, his interest in language and the delicate balance of life and death leads to amateur dissections of small animals – tiny hearts revealed still pumping, as life trickles away. But as an adult, following the death of his mother, Luke’s obsession deepens, resulting in a haunting and bizarre experiment on Luke’s own children.

‘A wonderfully disturbing book - chillingly focused and lyrically amoral with moments of remarkable stillness and beauty.’ A.L. Kennedy

‘Burnside's prose is exquisite, and he dissects his themes with delicacy to produce a novel resonant with poetic menace’ Sunday Times
  • Published: 4 January 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446412237
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 224
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About the author

John Burnside

John Burnside was among the most acclaimed writers of his generation. His novels, short stories, poetry and memoirs won numerous awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial, Saltire Scottish Book of the Year and, in 2023, he received the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime’s achievement in literature. In 2011 Black Cat Bone won both the Forward and the T.S. Eliot Prizes for poetry. He died in 2024.

portrait photo of John Burnside

Also by John Burnside

The Empire of Forgetting
Ruin, Blossom
Learning to Sleep
Still Life with Feeding Snake
Ashland & Vine
I Put a Spell on You
All One Breath
See all

Praise for The Dumb House

Compelling reading

Scotsman

An exceptionally sinister book... It is the story of Luke, whose experiments into the nature of human language are recounted with all the beguiling reasonableness of the highly intelligent madman... The horror is tempered and fine-tuned by the exceptional beauty of Burnside's writing... In Luke, Burnside has produced one of the most chilling voices in recent fiction

Times Literary Supplement

A wonderfully disturbing book - chillingly focused and lyrically amoral with moments of remarkable stillness and beauty. A poetic novel in the best and most troubling sense

A. L. Kennedy

Burnside's prose is exquisite and he dissects his themes with delicacy to produce a novel resonant with poetic menace

Sunday Times

My favourite book of the year

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